Couples Therapy
by MBLite
Summary: Chapter 23: Remember that big fight we've been waiting for? It's on.
1. Evangeline

Author's note:  I have returned from the grave, inspired anew.  I'm sorry I abandoned my story "Changing of the Guard,"  if anyone still cares.  I just kinda lost the thread of it when I saw the finale of season 2.  This story takes place from the end of season 2 (last ep) into season three, so it sort of parallels the series itself.  It helps if you go back and read my story "Tag!"  If you don't feel like it, then here are some facts that you're just going to have to accept for _this _story to make sense:

Pietro and Rogue are together.  So are Lance and Kitty.  So are Jean and Scott.  Cope. Pietro has developed an immunity towards Rogue's powers.  Keep coping.  Rogue has permenantly absorbed Pietro's powers, though not his personality.  Cope on and prosper. This story, while not actively pro-Jean, is not anti-Jean.  May the coping be with you.  

If you're violently not okay with any of these facts, this story may very well just piss you off.  I'd rather not rehash the entirety of Tag! so please don't complain that Rogue having Pietro's powers (or Pietro himself) makes no sense, etc, etc.  

This first chapter is a brief intro chapter.  But I'm working on it, so just hang tight.  I don't own X-Men: Evo, but if I did the first thing I'd do is get Gambit a better damn haircut.  

*This is a third repost of chapter one.  The whole story has been tweaked cause Pietro was pretty OOC.

_"Now just to be certain let's be sure to set the record straight: I could use an angel but I don't intend to split up the take.  Never go for treason, but I got reasons that don't warrant debate.      My act's in tact and in fact you're not all that…"  -Bad Religion, 'Evangeline'_

            Rogue swallowed hard as Scott walked out of the danger room, loyalties split between the boyfriend she worshiped, the team leader she trusted and Xavier, who had turned in his chair and rolled out the door.  As it turns out, her decision was made for her by a little brunette.

            "What," Kitty began, crossing the room to Lance in three strides, "the _hell_," and in one swing she decked him.  "_Is your problem?!_"

            Rogue cast her eyes on an uneasy looking Quicksilver.

            "I was actually wondering the same thing."

            "Kitty, baby-"

            _"Don't you Kitty-baby me you jackass!_" Kitty shrieked, swinging at him again with such fury that she phased through him, her velocity knocking her off her feet.  Todd and Freddy nearly crashed to the ground with her, laughing their asses off.

            "Nice moves tinkerbell!"  Freddy choked out.

            "Everyone out," Rogue growled.  Todd's giggling subsided.

            "The hell should we listen to you?"

            "Do what she says," Lance said.  "Now."

            Wanda shrugged, and she Blob, Toad and Quicksilver slunk towards the exit.

            "Not you, Pietro," Rogue said.  "You stick around.  Jean, Evan, Kurt, beat it."

            "It would take me days to list off all the reasons why that ain't gonna happen," Evan replied.  Rogue walked over to Kitty and helped her up.  

            "Come on guys," Jean said, grabbing Evan and Kurt's respective arms, and pulling them past Quicksilver, still frozen in place, towards the door.

            "What are you going to do?"  Kurt asked the other two girls over his shoulder.  Rogue cracked her knuckles.

            "It's time for a little couples therapy."


	2. Aurora

Author's note: Okay another short chapter, sorry, I figured a little something was better than nothing.  I cannot even begin to tell you how sweet and flattering the reviews have been.  I've been blushing all day and it really means a lot to me that people like reading this stuff.  So a thousand thank yous, I really do appreciate it.  It occurred to me that the tidbit about Wanda in Tag! runs counter to the one in the actual series, I'll figure out a way to smooth it out eventually.  I was so mad at the show when I first saw Day of Reckoning.  Darn them, how was I supposed to work with _that?!_  But I think I've got it sorted, and the result is this, so we'll see how it goes.

*Entire story reposted, attempted to fix Pietro's OOCness

_"__I had it in my hand, now where did it go, Aurora?  I see you up ahead, but I don't know if I can go as far as you go…"  _

_-Veruca Salt, Aurora_

            "Kitty, let me explain," Lance started, reaching down to help her up.  She tried to smack his hand away, but just wound up smacking through it as she scrambled to her feet and stood beside Rogue.  

            "Go ahead, I'm listening," she said.  "The professor suddenly thinks inviting you guys over is a great plan?  That you're gonna teach us something Logan hasn't?"

            "He just… he doesn't think there's enough of you, and after that fight in the mall…"

            "And you didn't say anything?  You couldn't give me a heads up?  And what's with picking fights with Scott?  This is how you try to make things _better?!"_

            Lance continued to protest weakly as Kitty railed at him, while Rogue stood, patiently waiting for Pietro to turn around.  He glanced over at Kitty's fury with Lance and sighed.  Slowly he turned and Rogue was struck by the fact that he looked awfully tired.

            "You got something to tell me sugar?"

            "I dunno.  I could kinda use a hug," he said.  A sly grin snuck onto his face.  "Or if Pryde's gonna keep screeching at Alvers, we could always head up to your room and-"

            "Pietro."

            "Right," Pietro sighed.  "Maybe it's the professor you should be talking to."

            "You're not telling me something."

            "I'm not telling you several somethings."

            Rogue stiffened, a bit of panic dripping into her anger.

            "What _are _you telling me?" she asked.  The door to the danger room slammed as Lance stormed out; Kitty had long since phased to god only knew where.  

            "I'm telling you you have to trust me.  For real this time."

            "What the hell do you mean 'for real'?"

            "C'mon stripes, you're not slow.  You're the only one who can ever keep up with me.  Now don't get me wrong, I realize that it's against human nature to absolutely trust a face this absolutely gorgeous, but don't you think I've proven myself by now?" he asked.  His smile was sweet and his voice flirtatious, but his girlfriend was having none of it.

            "Why don't you start by trusting me and telling me what the hell is going on?" Rogue replied.  Pietro's smile slipped, and he was clearly getting agitated, eyes darting around the room and looking at anything but Rogue, his voice accelerating.

            "Okay okay.  Maybe we're not talking about trust, I guess trust is the wrong word.  _Do_ you trust me?  Of course you do, don't answer that, stupid question.  You trust me in spite of my stunning good looks, good, great, and I trust you in spite of yours, but I can't tell you what's going on because… just because."

Pietro rubbed his forehead.  

"Everything's so damned complicated," he continued, talking so fast that only Rogue would have been able to understand him.  "It was so much easier when my biggest decision was what color shirt to wear, when I was the shallow guy that everyone wanted to sleep with, when you were this pretty mystery who I thought hated me.  I'm asking you to do more than trust me, I'm asking for so much I know, I'm asking for you to go on just plain faith and I don't even believe in faith but I need it from you now more than I've ever needed anything from anyone, I need you to believe in me and just keep doing it and don't give up on me.  Be angry with me, be furious with me, hell, hate me if you want to but believe in me and it'll all come out okay in the end.  I think."

            "Pietro-" Rogue started, then stopped.  "I'll try.  I can only try."

            He nodded.

            "With a little luck, that'll be enough," he replied, seeming to calm down just a little.  "Wanna take a few shots at me?  It seemed to make Kitty feel better."

            "Nah.  Can we just hang out for a while?" she asked, putting her arms around his waist and pulling him closer by his narrow hips.  "I don't want to deal with the others right now."

            "Sure," Pietro said, .  The two sat with their backs to one wall of the danger room, empty, sterile and silent, Rogue's head on Pietro's shoulder.  

            Light burned through the darkness and through the peace in sleep Pietro and Rogue had briefly found.  

            "Mission," Lance said, silhouetted in the doorway.  "Come on."

            Rogue stood up, rubbing the spot in her neck where the shoulder plate of Pietro's uniform had dug into her skin.  

            "What kind of mission?"  Pietro asked.  

            "We've got a bead on Wolverine."  

            "Be there in a second," Pietro said.  Lance nodded and left, letting more light into the room from the open door.  Rogue started to head for the door when Pietro grabbed her hand.

            "Wait a minute."

            "We have to go, Wolverine's in trouble," Rogue started, before Pietro cut her off by kissing her.  He broke away, leaving her breathless and reeling a little, and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her as tightly as he could, spending a few seconds reconsidering everything.  He didn't have to go out there, he could grab her and run and let the others fend for themselves, but his spell of hesitation was broken as she said softly,

            "Sugar… I can't breathe."

            Pietro let her go.

            "Sorry," he said, wiping her face gently with his thumb where her lipstick and eye shadow had smeared.  "Just remember what we talked about, okay?"  

            Rogue didn't have time to say yes before he was out the door.


	3. Bomb

Author's note:  Okay, here's the deal- I'm trying to find my X-Men: Evo tapes, because I want to play this story close to the series.  However, I also reaaally want to keep writing it, and I want to keep updating.  So here's the thing- I'm going to keep updating, but I may go back and tweak the story a little for accuracy (i.e. events during Day of Reckoning, Day of Recovery, etc.)  I'll keep trap of just how much tweaking I do, and let people know what changes I've made.  In the meantime, here goes nothing.

_"__Death of a future, goodbye to my friends, wish I could see you all again. Family hollow, family real, wish you were here, see how I feel." –Bush "Bomb"_

            "Run!" Jean shouted.  Rogue scrambled with the rest of them.

            "_It's a trap!!" _ Rogue thought about the glowing playing card, swallowing hard as she heard Wanda's voice.  Of course it was a trap.  It had been far too quiet not to be a trap.  And playing cards don't glow.  Pietro was gone.  And then the explosions started, like someone had dumped a thousand lit cherry bombs onto the battlefield.  She caught sight of five steel spheres, with wedges cut out of them as they scattered and ran, and Rogue heard her boyfriend's words from the night before echoing in her head.

_            I need you to believe in me and just keep doing it and don't give up on me. _

            Rogue ran hard as she could and took cover from the explosions, having lost track of Jean, Evan and Kurt.  She slunk as quietly as she could between the crates, trying to find someone, anyone, who she recognized, pulling off a glove just in case.  It turns out she ran into someone else.  

            He was taller than her, by quite a bit.  He was wearing the same sort of uniform-mask that Jean wore, which left his face and hair exposed, brown locks brushing his forehead.  His eyes were blood red, and he had a small smile on his face.  Rogue froze, panicked, mind still spinning from Pietro's words.

            _Be angry with me, be furious with me, hell, hate me if you want to_…

            The red-eyed man reached out and handed her a card, staring intently for a moment, looming over her.  Then, slowly, he backed away.  

            _Why didn't he attack?  _she thought.  She glanced at the playing card.  King of Hearts.  But playing cards don't glow, not even the King of Hearts.  She threw it as far as she could and ran towards the sounds of shouting.

            …_but believe in me and it'll all come out okay in the end._

            Rogue saw Beast hit the ground, and started running.  She laid her hands on him, reaching through the fur to touch his skin, and slammed Sabertooth away.  

            "So long, hairbrain," she muttered.  She caught sight of the others, and like them, started following Wanda.

            _I think._

            That became a pretty big "I think" as the ground underneath them was torn apart and they crashed into the cavern beneath.  Moments later, Rogue caught her first glimpse of a Sentinel.

            "Oh no…"  

            "God damn it, god damn it, god damn it, god damn it, god damn it," Pietro whispered over and over again, too quietly and too fast for his father to hear.  His heartbeat was just a hum at this point as he stared down at Rogue, frozen in the green gelatinous substance that he just prayed wasn't lethal.  The Sentinel would come for them momentarily, but it was looking for Magneto, not him, not yet anyway.  His father could handle a one-armed robot, couldn't he?  There was plenty of time for Pietro to run back to the battle and go get-

            Into some serious trouble.  Pietro rose from the ground in his sister's supernatural grip, unable to run, unable to move, until she dropped him, weak and shaken, and turned to Magneto.          

            "You've never seen me angry.  Until now."

            Events went by fast, even for Quicksilver.  He managed to get clear of the fight between his father and sister, but it became readily apparent that his father was not half as good at looking after himself as he would have had his son believe.  

            _I'm sorry, baby, but I've got a better chance of rescuing you with the old man in one piece, _Pietro thought as he bolted towards the falling Sentinel and grabbed Magneto by the collar and just kept going.  

            "Good work, Quicksilver," Magneto said, though no trace of actual admiration entered his voice.

            "Go to hell," Pietro muttered back, slowing to a stop.  

            "Where are we?" Magneto asked.  

            "Somewhere in upstate New York."

            "Your sister's going to be looking for us."

            "You think?"  Pietro muttered, his head back in the battle in the city.  "Logical leaps like that, you _must _be a revolutionary, seriously, you should start submitting those thoughts to Readers Digest- better yet, start your own magazine, give Rosie and Oprah a run for their money."

            Pietro's low key rant subsided into a dark silence at a sharp look from his father.

            "I would advise you not to overestimate your indispensability to me Quicksilver," Magneto said, deadly quiet.  He removed a key from someplace in his cape- for all Pietro knew, his father's loose change stuck to him like magnets on a fridge- and handed it to his son.  Pietro took it and sighed, sliding it into a pocket hidden under the left shoulder plate.

            "So if this key starts the Oldsmobile, I win it, right?"

            "That's the key to an apartment in Pennsylvania, you fool," Magneto snapped.  "It's registered to the name Michael Quentin Proctor, which is who you are until I say otherwise."

            "Quentin," Pietro sighed.  "And I thought you hated Wanda."  

            "Wyatt, Pennsylvania, Wyatt Heights.  Apartment 322.  You'll find all your other documents in the drawer left of the sink.  And _stay there.  _You're there so I can find you, and if I can't because you've sprinted to the coast you won't like the results."

            "If this is a roach motel, you won't find me ever again.  Don't overestimate your indispensability, 'Dad'.  I may not be able to take over the world, but I sure as hell can take care of myself without the teensiest bit of help from you."

            With that, Pietro took off, which was pretty much the only way he ever got in the last  word.  He could make it to Pennsylvania in forty-five minutes without breaking a sweat, and once at the apartment, he could try to get in touch with Rogue, if anyone at the Institute would let him talk to her.  If she still wanted to talk to him.  Maybe he should have been straight with her in the first place.  No, she would've told him that this was the stupidest idea he'd ever had and to come let her kiss it out of him.  And she would have been right, and he would have listened.  But no matter how idiotic the plan, Pietro had to see it through to the end.

_            No turning back now, _he thought, rushing past a sign which said "Welcome to Pennsylvania."

            Magneto's four other acolytes had scattered.  Piotr Rasputin, the Russian called Colossus had gone up to the coast of Maine to work on the docks, Sabertooth had skulked up to north most Minnesota to get away from everyone and everything, Pyro was sent to the desert, where he was least likely to get himself caught by incinerating a forest, or town, or city.  

            Remy LeBeau had different tastes.  There would be no wilderness, no laying low for him.  He intended to live the good life while he could, and at the moment, he was trying to do so in the city of brotherly love.  Though he really had in mind something much more sisterly.  

            Of Magneto's four newest recruits, Gambit knew that Magneto considered him the most reliable.  After all, he was the most mercenary.  Colossus was a man of strong moral fiber, and while Magneto himself possessed strong convictions, he pursued them with flexible morality.  Pyro was not quite sane, his fondness for fire outweighed his fondness for anything else by far, and even further outweighed his good sense.  Sabertooth had grudges, which meant that as soon as a more direct route to revenge emerged, he would abandon any cause Magneto set him to.  

            Of all of them, however, Magneto trusted his son least of all.  Perhaps he feared his son would go the way of his daughter, and turn on him with a vengeance.  He had reason enough to do so, Magneto had turned on his son so many times, it was a wonder the man wasn't dizzy.  

            So Gambit highly doubted that trust was much of a factor on either side of this coin.  Which meant that, unless he was an idiot, the boy was watching his back.  And apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so, as the cell phone in his trench coat rang.

            "Bon jour."

            "Where are you?" a voice on the other end growled.

            "Philly."

            "Good.  Get to the address I'm sending you."

            "Mission?"

            "Surveillance.  Quicksilver."

            Gambit sighed.

            "Surveillance is not so much my forte-"

            "Enough.  You're a thief, do what you usually do, just don't take anything."

            Gambit chewed the inside of his cheek.  Tempted though he was to tell Magneto to hire a nanny or baby-sit his own damned son, Gambit knew himself to be far, very far, from irreplaceable.

            "All right," he said.  "Gambit'll swing by and check on your boy."

            "I'll contact you again tomorrow.  If he's up to anything, I want to know."

            Magneto hung up, and Gambit rolled his eyes, putting his phone away.  Now he was going to have to steal a car and spend a perfectly good evening- in the middle of pledge week for four sororities no less- to go keep tabs on the boss's brat.

            _No rest for the wicked,_ he thought.


	4. The Sinking Road

AN:  Here we have chapter four, with a big honkin' warning on angst and a rating change.  I've tweaked everything for accuracy (found my tapes) and I've started including a quote from a song at the beginning of each chapter.  Think of it as a recommended soundtrack.  And so it continues:

_"Y__ou want to wash away what ails your heart, you stand by the waterfront never sure of your choice.  This is a sinking road that we all travel on…" –Black Heart Procession 'Waterfront (the Sinking Road)'_

            "The number you have dialed is not in service.  Please hang up and try your call again.  If you need assistance, please hang up and dial zero for the operator."

            Pietro hung up and dialed zero and the bile rose in his throat as he tried his damnedest not to let panic overtake him.

            The first operator he reached hung up on him the moment he said he was trying to reach the Bayville Institute.  So did the second, and the third, and the fourth, after being screamed at by a terrified Pietro.  There was nothing he could do but try again.

            "Operator."

            "Please don't hang up.  I'm trying to reach someone at the Bayville Institute-"

            "Are you _another _reporter?  God, why won't you just leave those poor people alone, haven't they been through enough?" the operator snapped at him.  Pietro drew a ragged breath.

            "I'm not a reporter, I swear, my girlfriend-"

            "Oh… god… I'm sorry, I…" the operator broke off.  "There've just been so many reporters…"

            "Why can't I get through?"

            The operator took a deep breath.  If she'd had to look Pietro in the face, she probably wouldn't have been able to tell him.

            "There was an explosion at the Bayville Institute.  The whole place was destroyed.  They don't know if anyone was inside.  I'm so-"

            Pietro hung up, feeling like someone had slit his legs open and let all the blood drop out of his body.  Rogue had been captured.  The X-Men couldn't have rescued her that fast.  Sure they could have.  They wouldn't go back there, not with the risk of being followed by a sentinel.  They always go back there, where else did they have to go?

            He hit the ground running when he got out of the building, ready to burn his shoes off in order to get back to Massachusetts, and got about three steps before coming face to face with Remy LeBeau.  

            "Goin' somewhere, mon ami?"

            "Move," Quicksilver snarled, balling his fists.  Gambit rocked back on his heels and smiled an easy grin.

            "Your pere want Gambit should keep an' eye on you, mon frere.  Gambit can't do that if you movin' faster than a speedin' bullet."

            Gambit charged up the jack of diamonds just slightly, so it burned instead of exploded, and touched it gently to the tip of the cigarette in his mouth.  

            "You not here when he call, your old man be sorely disappointed."

            Gambit let the card fall from his fingers; it crumbled to white ash, the wind blowing it gently apart before it hit the ground.  

            "I've been disappointing Magneto since before I learned to walk.  One of these days he's gonna have to get used to it.  Now move."

            "What's your hurry?  You just got here, take off your jacket, stay a while.  We go to a bar, Gambit buy you a drink."

            "Gambit'll get the fuck _out of my way, _and stay the hell away from me unless we're on a damned mission," Quicksilver's irate tirade was cut short as his cell rang.  "Christ what _now?_"  

            He withdrew the cell phone from his pocket and answered.

            "What?"

            "Get the hell back in that apartment," Magneto growled.  

            "What the hell did you do, steal Cerebro from the Institute before you blew the place up?" Pietro shouted, his voice cracking under the stress of his situation.

            "I borrowed a spy satellite actually."

            "How many casualties?" Pietro asked.

            "I have no idea," Magneto replied, his indifference causing Pietro's stomach to twist itself into shapes for which there were no names.  "A few of Xavier's were captured, a few of Mystique's."

            "And in the Institute?"

            Magneto paused.

            "Everyone made it out, from what I hear.  Though you've never been one to concern yourself with the numbers.  Get back inside, and do _not _go anywhere.  I won't warn you again."

            That was the real trouble with cell phones, you couldn't slam the receiver down in anger.  Pietro hung up and glared at Gambit, whose relaxed grin did not reach his red and black eyes.  

            "There's a bar down the street.  I still buy you a drink."

            "Stay away from me," Pietro hissed, and in a blur was gone back up the stairs.

            Gambit frowned, as his phone rang again.

            "Well?"

            "Your boy the angry type, Magneto?"

            "Hardly.  He has the emotional depth of a house cat."

            "That be one angry little pussy cat then, boss.  There's somethin' weighin' heavy on that boy's mind."

            "Indeed.  He tried to call Xavier's institute."

            "How you know that?"

            "I tapped his phone, you fool.  Ah, no wonder he was as so interested," Magneto said.  Gambit could vaguely hear voices in the background, a recording of some sort.  "He told the operator something about having a girlfriend there.  Very interesting.  So the boy is seeing one of Xavier's little wenches."

            "Lemme guess.  Gambit go back to Bayville to find out which one."

            "Not yet.  Keep an eye on Pietro for a couple more days, make sure he doesn't run.  They'll be trying to get back the captured ones, they'll need weeks to regroup.  Give it a few days."

            "Understood."

            Rogue had never been so relieved as she was when she ran up the ramp of the Velocity.  They'd made it out, all of them, without being dissected or executed or tortured.  She supposed that was all on the agenda for day two.  As she looked over at Lance's angry face, Storm struggling to get them out alive, she kept remembering Pietro's words, before he'd let them walk right into his father's trap.

            _I need you to believe in me and just keep doing it and don't give up on me.  Be angry with me, be furious with me, hell, hate me if you want to but believe in me and it'll all come out okay in the end.  I think._

Kitty moved to the seat next to her even as the helicopter shook and swerved, and squeezed her gloved hand.  Rogue took her by surprise as she leaned over, put her head on Kitty's shoulder, and cried.


	5. Evil Angel

AN:  Hiya.  This chapter takes place during the episode "Stuff of Villains," as you'll probably realize: some of the dialogue is taken directly from the episode, mostly because I don't expect anyone to remember the ep word for word.  Thank you to anyone who's reading this.  

_"__Evil angel bearing apples, when you kissed me on this drawbridge, as the boats do, how was I to know you'd flee?" –Rufus Wainwright, 'Evil Angel'  
  
_

             Running from the military, a destroyed home, congressional hearings, a fight with Juggernaut, Presidential pardons, a tango with remnants of the Brotherhood outside a town meeting, it was almost too much for Rogue and the other X-Men to deal with.  Sure, it was all well and good for Jean to convince the parents of Bayville that the world wouldn't come to an end if Xavier's mutants were allowed to go back to Bayville high, but by the proverbial laws of the playground, that meant absolutely nothing.  Every time something went wrong, they were trouble making muties.  Every time something went right, they were lousy mutie cheats.  There was no winning, so they just tried to stick together.

            Jean was made to take tests and quizzes before or after school, when no one else was around, with a proctor who'd never seen the exam questions before.  The Professor and the ETS were already arguing over whether or not Jean's most recent- and impressive- SAT scores should be thrown out.  

            Rogue, Evan and Scott were banned entirely from gym class and school sports, something which they normally wouldn't have minded if it weren't for the circumstances.  No one made an issue about Rogue's speed powers- though she still felt them inside her, ever since Pietro turned on the Brotherhood, it was like her mind just wouldn't allow it.  Psychosomatic block due to post traumatic stress, Beast had called it.  Anytime something went missing, Kitty was the first one questioned, and as soon as Kurt 'came out of the closet' they anticipated he would be the second.  They ate lunch together, did everything together when they could, even though the professor had advised them against 'ganging up,' which was what the faculty called it.  It was hard not to though, with everyone else looking at them with horror, uncomfortable interest, and hatred.

            Rogue, who'd gotten a great deal of this before, was getting even more of it now, and as much as she liked to pretend it didn't bother her, it was cutting her to the quick.  It was a pale difference, but a difference nonetheless.  There was hatred on a social level, and then there was hatred on a species level.  The first was a lot easier to write off than the second.

            "There, _she's _one of them," a couple girls giggled as they walked past her.  Rogue sighed, about to go back to her homework.  She looked up at the sound of arguing and saw a couple of Bayville's resident idiots who seemed to have a bone to pick- no pun intended- with Evan.

            "Dammit," she muttered,  putting aside her notebook as she got up to cover his back.  "No rest for the weary."

            "It's wicked," someone said softly, out of her earshot, watching the girl go shove a boy twice her size and get smacked down.  He pulled the queen of spades from his deck and looked from it to Rogue.  "No rest for the wicked, petit."

            "It's over, hurry up, retract those things," Rogue said urgently, looking around to make sure no one else had seen Evan get all prickly.

            "I… I _can't!_" he replied, looking scared.  "What's happening to me?"

            "Evan, come on, concentrate!"  

            Evan took a deep breath, and managed to pull the bone spurs back into his body.  Rogue sighed.

            "Just keep your cool, okay?  I'm gonna go head off those lame brains."

            She took off after the two bullies, leaving a bewildered Evan behind, hoping that he had a spare shirt somewhere in his locker.  

            _Crap, which way did they go?  _Rogue thought, rounding the corner.  She heard a small explosion and ran towards it, only to see the two thugs running away from a man in a trench coat, standing next to a tree with a large smoking dent in it.  _Oh great.  Mister King of Hearts, _she growled inwardly.

            "What are _you _doing here?" she snapped.  He turned around to face her and smiled.

            "Just passing by, cheri.  Nice day,"  and with a little tip of his non-existent hat, he turned and walked off.

             "Hey, isn't that one of Magneto's new guys?" Kitty said, running up to stand beside her.  

            "Yup, and he's up to something."

            "We'd better tell Scott," Kitty said.  

            "Forget that, there's no time!  Let's follow him!"

            _The King of Hearts knows where Magneto is, and chances are, he knows where Pietro is too.  And I want to get to that boy before Scott does._

            "But what about sixth period?"  Kitty asked as Rogue dragged her off.

            Pietro was profoundly not pleased.  Sitting in a diner, minding his own business, scouring the newspaper for anything he could find about Bayville, when he noticed his coffee cup shaking.  Five minutes of irrational conversation later and his sister had him locked in a cabinet in a safe in the middle of the street.  

            Now he was in the back of an armored military truck, escorted by two jeeps.

_            She'll make him come to me.  _Clearly he'd gotten the brains of the pair, if she thought Magneto would ever stoop so low as to personally rescue Pietro.  Hell, fetching his son that first time, back in New York had probably galled him enough as it was.   

             _Great.  Now I'm probably going to be dissected.  Dammit, this **is **the stupidest plan I've ever had.  _

Just then, the truck started to shake, or maybe it was the road, it was hard to tell.  He slammed against the wall as the truck spun out to a stop.  The way he figured it, he was either getting rescued or killed.  He moved back to the window and saw Todd leap off the roof.  Moments later, Blob was at the truck's door, trying to force his way in.

            "Hey Blob, you actually got off the couch to come rescue me?" he said.  _I can't believe I actually missed you, you giant ball of lard.  _Freddy's reply pretty much convinced Pietro that the feeling wasn't mutual.  

            "Rogue!" he heard Lance shout.  

            _You're kidding… no, that makes sense!  I bet Lance called her to come and help get me, she's not mad at me- okay, not mad enough at me to let me get dissected.  _

            Pietro's joyful train of thought was cut off as the ground lurched and the truck started moving in a direction in which he was pretty sure there was no road.  Or ground for that matter.

            "BLOB!!" he shouted, pounding on the door.  Just as the truck went over, someone grabbed his hand.

            "I'm only doing this for Rogue," Kitty muttered as she phased them through the truck and grabbed onto the edge of the cliff.  The truck exploded on impact as Kitty and Pietro watched.

            "Thanks!" Pietro replied.  "But you just about muffed that, slowpoke," he added, scrambling up the rock face.  He had to talk to Rogue and get out of there before Lance broke both his legs.  He bolted over to her, faster than anyone could see.  

            "Nothing's changed," he said, to Rogue, in place of all the things he wanted to say, like I love your new shirt, how come you never wore belly shirts when I was around, purple's a good color on you, I miss you, I'm sorry, this was the stupidest idea I've ever had, I should've given you a chance to talk me out of it.  

            "How can you say that?" she asked him, incredulous.  He reached out and touched her face and gave her a smile.

            "Because it's true.  Later babe."

            The whole conversation took place too fast for anyone else to hear it, and then he was gone again.  The Brotherhood was gone as well, though Rogue tried to slow them down with Lance's powers.  After a little discussion with the army, they headed home to face the Professor and Scott.

            "I can't believe he had the nerve to just run off like that!" Kitty growled as she phased them through the jagged pieces of broken asphalt, made treacherous by Lance and Rogue's liberal use of his powers.  "Without even bothering to talk to you!"

            "Seriously," Rogue said quietly.  

            "Scott's gonna kill us when we get home."

            "Not if we don't tell him."

            "Rogue-"

            "Right, right, I know.  What a lousy week."

            Standing on the precipice above, Wanda could've kicked herself.

            _Of course!  _she thought.  _Why didn't I think of that before?  _Her eyes followed the pale girl with the white streaks in her hair as the two X-Men disappeared around the bend in the road.  Wanda turned, heading down the mountain the way she came up.  She was going to have to pay a certain X-Man a little visit.


	6. Beware

AN:  Okay, any minute- well, chapter now- I'm gonna get to the action.  I know, these long setups are obnoxious, what can I say, it's just my way.  This one is set in "Blind Alley."  Depending on where the show goes the next couple of episodes, I may need to diverge and ignore what's actually going on in the show to keep the story going- this accuracy crap is _way _hard.  Anyway, this is kind of a short chapter, but I'm working on it pretty constantly.  Thanks to anyone who's reading, extra special thanks to those who've reviewed.

_"The way people smile and say, you're using me in every way: it's okay._

_Times are changing, life is upside down, no reason to cry now._

No, no reason to cry now…"  -Afghan Whigs, "Beware" 

            _What is he **up **to?  _Rogue thought, lying in the grass outside the Institute and watching the clouds.  _Turns on the Brotherhood for his father, but then the Brotherhood rescues him when he gets captured.  Unless they're all working for Magneto.  I didn't see Scarlet Witch anywhere, maybe she doesn't know what they're up to.  _

The sun came out from behind a cloud; she squinted at the sudden brightness.  

            "I don't get it," Rogue said out loud.  She blinked twice as the sun was suddenly obscured by shadow.

            "You're about to," a girl's voice replied.  The backlit face was hard to make out, but the tell-tale red long coat was proof enough

            _Ah hell, _Rogue thought as she, started to push herself up off the ground.  That became a no-go as tree roots burst from the ground, forming huge hands which grabbed her wrists, then hardened back into wood.  

            "Please," Wanda said, stepping a bit closer.  "Don't get up.  Where is he?"

            "Who?" Rogue asked.  _Pietro or Magneto?_  The roots twisted tighter around her arms as Wanda's short fuse got shorter.

            "Don't play stupid.  Where is my brother?"

            "I don't know."

            "Don't insult me," Wanda snapped, straddling Rogue's waist and sitting on her stomach.  "Where?"

            "I'm telling you I don't know," she said again.

            _"Liar!" _ Wanda shrieked.  Another root came out of the ground and wrapped itself around Rogue's throat.  "You think I'd fall for that?  My brother runs off but doesn't tell his bitch girlfriend?!"  

            Rogue swallowed hard, praying that the root didn't constrict any further.

            "Wanda, he told me to trust him and believe in him and the next day I was stuck in some green rock waiting to be crushed by a giant robot," Rogue wheezed out.  "If it weren't for Storm and Mystique, I'd probably be dead.  I don't know where he is."

            Wanda sighed, looking at Rogue with a blend of pity and disgust.

            "I would think an X-Man would have better taste.  Or at least better brains," Wanda got up off of her, and the roots receded back into the ground.  "Poor little Roguey.  Walked right into that one, didn't you."

            Rogue didn't bother to go after Wanda as she walked away.  In a one on one fight, Wanda could take her apart.  Hell, she didn't even have Quicksilver's powers to use anymore.  

            "Rogue?"  Kitty called.

            "I'm over here!" Rogue hollered back, her voice cracking a little.  _Bitch didn't have to squeeze so hard._  

            "Rogue, we gotta go- oh my god, what happened to your _neck?!_" Kitty cried, almost touching her out of shock.

            "My boyfriend's damn sister happened.  Wanda came by to grill me on where Pietro is."

            "She tried to strangle it out of you?  Jeez, it's a good thing you don't know- you don't, right?  Wait, _boyfriend?  _You're not seriously thinking of staying with that jerk after everything he's-"  

            "Kitty, you came out here for a reason?" Rogue prompted.  

            "Oh!" Kitty said, covering her mouth.  "Scott's AWOL, Jean's got a bead on him in Mexico."

            "Mexico?  Are you kidding?  Scott can barely read a bus schedule, what the hell is he doing in Mexico?"

            _Nothing good, _Jean said in her head.  _Or nothing good's being done to him.  Please hurry?_

            _We're on our way, _Rogue thought back.

            "Come on, Kitty.  We can argue about my crappy taste in men later," Rogue said.  The two girls ran back towards the mansion to get into uniform.  Rogue rubbed her neck as they jogged and sighed, "God, this has been _such _a lousy month."  

            Two photos hit Magneto's desk.

            "Gambit's money is on one of these two."

            Magneto glared up at him from his chair, a large metal throne which floated two feet off the floor.

            "I didn't ask you for a multiple choice response, LeBeau."

            "Could just ask your boy, but somehow I don' think he'd appreciate the question."

            Magneto's scowl deepened as he swept up the two polaroids.  

            "Shadowcat and the Rogue.  Why?"

            "They tailed the Brotherhood and gave a hand in rescuing 'im.  Along with several soldiers, mind, but they were there."

            "Interesting," Magneto steepled his fingers, examining the photos.  He noticed that the picture of Rogue seemed a little more worn than the one of Shadowcat, as though someone had spent a much more time looking at it.  

            "They seem equally unlikely prospects, in truth.  Shadowcat and Avalanche have been chasing each other's tails for months.  And the Rogue cannot make direct physical contact with another person, mutant or _homo sapiens._"

            "That so?" Gambit asked, looking too casually disinterested to be anything other than fascinated.  

            "She absorbs life force, memories, and in the case of mutants, powers.  Untouchable and very, very powerful.  Shadowcat is a useless child who can barely tie her shoes without phasing through them."

            "So… you think the Rogue then?"

            "Far fetched, but more likely than the other."  Magneto watched Gambit trying to act composed as he waited for Magneto's orders.  "If we can recruit the girl, whichever one it may be, she could be used to keep Quicksilver in check.  If she won't be recruited, well, so many other things could glue the boy to our cause."

            "Such as?"

            "She betrays him."

            "And if she don't?"

            "Then she dies in service of Xavier.  Perhaps at the hands of some unsympathetic _homo sapiens.  _Either way, his faith in anyone but me will be broken."

            Magneto leaned back and smiled.

            "Do you think you can handle keeping an eye on both Quicksilver and Xavier's Rogue?"  he asked.  Gambit's smile slithered onto his face, having received the invitation he was waiting for.

            "Gambit would like nothing more."

  



	7. My Best Wasn't Good Enough

AN:  Here ya go, chapter 7.  Not really much else to say.
    
    _"…now this time to wonder, now this time to heal, tme to let it all come down, but I don't know what I feel._
    
    _But it aches and it hurts and it burns, oh it kills me._
    
    _Tick, tock, you don't stop, you don't fade, you just stay…"_
    
    _Anouk, 'My Best Wasn't Good Enough'_

            If there was one thing Gambit loved, it was the knowledge that no secret on earth was safe from him.  He might not have the power to browse though someone's thoughts the way Xavier could, but he could walk into a life when no one was looking and put together the pieces for himself.  Mystique had unwittingly provided just the necessary distraction- with Shadowcat and Rogue down in Mexico, their temporary room in the mansion, which had almost been completely reconstructed, was undisturbed.  It had been embarrassingly easy to break in.  He put a chair under the doorknob, just in case the younger mutants were as nosy as he was, and set to making as thorough a violation of Rogue's privacy as possible.

            In a drawer, face down, he found a framed picture of her in a black lace dress and Quicksilver in a white suit, Rogue's arms wrapped around the boy, his hand gently touching her hair.  Neither was looking at the camera, so he suspected that this was a candid shot, and not one posed.  He dug around a little more, flipping through books, but turned up very little.  This wasn't very surprising, after all, the mansion _had _just blown up, with everything in it.  He was curious as to where she'd stashed that photograph to keep it safe.

            _Jackpot, _he thought, pulling a book with no title on the spine off the shelf.  It was plain black, with neat handwriting inside.  He reclined himself on Rogue's bed and, without a shred of shame or remorse, began reading her journal.  

            The first entry was three days after the Sentinel incident- anything she'd written previous would have been lost in the explosion, but there was a lot to be said for a journal written when starting over.  

            _I don't know what to do, _she'd written.  _I could just kill that idiot.  Have faith in him.  I don't even know if **I **believe in faith.  _

The rest was just about the reconstruction of the mansion, finding the professor, and a bit about how cool it had been to be so strong when she stole Juggernaut's powers.  Gambit flipped to the next entry, nestling his head into the pillow and making himself more comfortable as he read.  

            _I just don't know what to do, _she wrote in an entry dated after Gambit had sent the Brotherhood to rescue Pietro.  _He says nothing's changed, but how can I believe that?  He betrayed everyone.  His sister, Lance, me, he handed us all to Magneto.  Is this just some kind of game to him?  Is he stringing me along for fun?  I don't want to think about it, I can't.  The one boy I've ever really cared about, the one boy I can touch-_

Hold up.  Did he read that right?  

            "Well well well, mon petit, you not so lethal as Magneto seems to think."

            _-and he's got an evil crazy dad with an agenda.  God I miss him so much.  Seeing him today just made it worse.  I never knew that I could hurt this bad.  Did I do something?  Was I boring?  God, I'm gonna die a virgin, I know it.  It couldn't have been a game all along… I saw into his head, he meant it all, at least for a while.  Did he change his mind?  How did I lose him… what did I do wrong?  _

_            Then there's that damned new recruit of Magneto's, the King of Hearts.  Up to something is an understatement.  He's always showing up, and he's the only one of Magneto's new gang that ever does.  Why is that?  Sticks around just long enough to say hello and then disappear again.  Kitty thinks he's good looking.  Just what I need in my life, another good looking boy who's up to something._

_            I really, really miss Pietro._

            That was the last entry.  Gambit closed the book, then turned his head and inhaled the scent Rogue's hair had left behind on the pillowcase.  Ever since he was a kid he'd had a thing for the reserved girls.  More chase, more fun, and once they came around, they were usually wild animals.  For Gambit, there was something even more intriguing about this one, a girl whose touch could actually kill a man.  Magneto said that she pulled the life energy and the powers right out of a mutant's body.  Gambit found himself intensely curious as to how that felt.  And how did Quicksilver find a way around it?  How much of the Rogue's affection for the boy was because she could touch him, Gambit wondered.  Then he heard a door shut someplace down the hall, followed by voices.

            "Hey, they're back!"

            "Is Scott okay?"

            Gambit sprang to his feet and slid the journal back where he'd found it.  He glanced up at the vent through which he'd originally snuck in, but a quick listen told him that exit was blocked.  

            _No big deal, _Gambit thought, sweeping the chair out from under the doorknob and putting it back where he'd found it, _it's not the first time._

            He stepped into Rogue's closet, behind the clothes and into the shadows, leaving the door cracked just enough so that he could see.  

            "The professor said he wants to see you about Wanda's little visit," Kitty said as they walked in.  While Shadowcat was out of Gambit's sightline, he had a very nice view indeed of her roommate taking off her uniform and dressing in more civilian clothes.  

            _I love this job, _Gambit thought to himself as the two girls left the room.  He slipped out of Rogue's closet and was out the vent before anyone noticed he was gone.  

            Xavier sensed a vague and unfamiliar presence on the edge of his psyche, but dismissed it as it faded out.   Some one knocked at his door- Rogue, of course. 

            "Have you had Dr. McCoy look at your neck yet?"

            "It's fine.  Just bruised."

            "I take it Scarlet Witch was looking for her father."

            "Or her brother.  I don't really think she can tell the difference anymore, or if she can, she doesn't care."

            "Do you know anything about what Quicksilver and Magneto are planning, Rogue?"

            "Take a good long look," Rogue said bitterly.  "He's a bright boy; he knows no one in this house can keep a secret from you."

            Xavier looked vaguely wounded.  Rogue sighed and continued.

            "Like I told Wanda.  He told me to trust him and that everything would be okay.  I ain't like you or Jean, though.  I don't know if he was lyin'.  Of course, if you don't believe me, you could always try to strangle me.  Up to you."

            "Rogue-" Xavier started, but the look she gave him cut him off.

            "Yeah?"  Rogue replied.  Xavier sighed.

            "Go see Doctor McCoy."

            She said nothing as she turned and walked out the door.

            "Some bruising, but no permanent damage," Hank said as he checked Rogue's neck and wrists.  "You haven't lost any range of motion or anything?"

            "I told you, I'm _fine,"_ she snapped, yanking her hand away.  "When the hell did everyone around here get so damned touchy feely?" she muttered.

            "Rogue, I'm not trying to discount how much Quicksilver has hurt you, but one betrayal is no reason to stop trusting people all together," Beast replied.

            "Jesus, y'all are making me feel like a Lifetime movie of the week!" she snarled.  

            "We're just trying to help."

            "I don't want your help.  What I want is for everyone to stop acting like this is some great tragedy.  Boy meets girl, boy screws girl over.  It's not like I care."

            "This isn't the way to handle this," Beast said.  "You don't have to talk about how you're feeling, but pretending you're feeling nothing-"

            "Go to hell," Rogue growled, storming out of the medical bay.  

            _I don't know what to do about her, Charles, _Beast thought out loud.

            _I'm at a bit of a loss myself, Henry.  We can't force her to accept what's happened, nor can we force her to open up, _Xavier thought back.

            Rogue got back to her room and lay down on her bed, got back up, grabbed her journal and a pen.  She cracked it open, wrote down the date, and wrote,

            _I'm really starting to hate it here.  _

            The door opened and she snapped the book shut again.

            "Hey.  Everything go okay with the Professor?" Kitty asked.

            "Fabulous," Rogue said, turning towards the wall.

            "Well, we still need to have a talk about your choice of words earlier today," Kitty said.  "Specifically, the word 'boyfriend.'"

            "Kitty, I don't wanna hear it," Rogue grumbled, curling up.

            "Come _on.  _Look, I know you're really confused, but, god, he's such a jerk!"

            "Kitty, we have school tomorrow."

            "You clearly don't need school, since you don't ever seem to learn!"  

            Rogue turned back over and fixed a murderous look on Kitty.  Kitty looked away, shifting her feet uncomfortably.

            "Look I'm sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded.  But I do mean it.  Quicksilver's really bad news, Rogue."

            "This conversation is over, Kitty," Rogue said, stripping off her clothes and throwing on pajamas.

            "Damn it Rogue, you're not the only one who's ever lost a boyfriend!" Kitty shouted.

            "What do you know?" Rogue snarled, spinning around.  "You dumped Lance 'cause of his politics!  But Pietro… I never cared about anyone like that.  And no one ever cared about me.  And even if I did, even if they did, what the _hell _am I gonna do about it?  Change his bedpan after I drop him into a coma?"

            Kitty and Rogue stood glaring at each other for a few minutes before Kitty broke the face off to change into her nightgown and crawl into bed.  Rogue stood down as well, getting back under the covers.

            "It's not the end of the world," Kitty said quietly as she turned out the light.

            Rogue looked out into the darkness of the room.

            "What do you know?" she sighed.


	8. Torn

AN: Here there be chapter 8.  Getting closer to revealing Pietro's plan, but not there yet.  Much love to y'all.  Oh, wait, disclaimer:  Don't drink if you're underage, or if you absolutely feel you have to, be really careful about it.  Alcohol poisoning isn't fun, and as you'll read, it makes people act out of character.

_"__So I guess the fortune teller's right, I should have seen just what was there and not some holy light;  
But you crawled beneath my veins and now I don't care, I have no luck, I don't miss it all that much,  
there's just so many things that I can't touch, I'm torn._

_You're a little late  
I'm already torn."_

_-Ednaswap 'Torn' (Yeah, I know, Natalie Imbruglia made it famous, but Ednaswap did it originally, and I think that version is more appropriate to the story.)_

            Pietro sat on the couch in the Brotherhood house, listlessly watching the news.  Some stupid skate competition the previous day had been disrupted when a mutant or mutants destroyed the arena in which it was being held.  He flipped through the channels, not really paying attention, too stuck on the sinking feeling in his stomach, the feeling that maybe his masterful genius super greatest most brilliant plan ever was none of the above.  There were just too many variables:  Magneto, Gambit, Mystique, wherever the hell she was, Xavier and the X-Geeks, and god help him, Wanda.  Maybe he'd already missed his window of opportunity, maybe his best shot was back during the Sentinel fight.  

            Still, Pietro knew that no one, with the possible exceptions of himself and his girlfriend, was perfect, and that other opportunities had to arise sooner or later.  He just hoped that Rogue could wait that long, when even she didn't know what she was waiting for.  

            "What are you so sulky about, traitor?" Lance grumbled, walking into the living room.  Lance had stopped trying to kill Pietro around the second day, and the two entered an uneasy truce.  Todd and Freddy were a little more accepting, but Lance was still intensely suspicious of his former friend and current leader.

            "Global warming," Pietro muttered back.  

            "Okay, not that I care, but what the hell happened to you?"  Lance snapped.  "Ever since you got back here you keep your mouth shut most of the time.  Not that I'm complaining."

            "What can I say, Lance, I just can't bring myself to interrupt your brilliant lectures.  I'm rapt.  Did you want something, or are you just here to annoy me?"

            Lance didn't respond, instead looking out the window.

            "Lance?" Pietro said.  Lance jumped, looking back towards the couch.

            "What?  Nothing.  I gotta go."

            Lance opened the door and walked out.

            Rogue trudged up the street, feeling lower than low.  She'd been fighting with virtually everyone in the mansion, from Xavier to Kitty to Jamie and everyone in between.  Evan never came back from his skate competition, instead deciding to spend some time with the Morlocks.  As a result, Rogue was now the only one- except Scott, who had his glasses- who didn't have control over her powers.  She hadn't thought it possible, but she belonged even less than before.

            So she decided to take a walk.  The weather was chilly and drizzling, Storm's powers manifesting her sorrow over Evan's absence, but Rogue hadn't bothered with a coat or umbrella.  Her feet just took her over to the Brotherhood house.  Maybe Lance would talk to her.  Kitty had dumped him, and he'd been almost as betrayed by Quicksilver as Rogue.  He'd have a beer, she'd pick up a bottle of cheap wine, and they'd stew in their misery together for a while.

            "We gotta stop meeting like this, cheri."

            Rogue just kept walking.

            "Leave me alone."

            Gambit strolled faster to keep up with her.

            "Leave a lady unescorted in the rain, petit?  What kind of gentleman would Gambit be if I did something like that?"

            He pulled off his coat and offered it to her, walking backwards in front of her and blocking her path.

            "I don't have the energy to deal with you," she said flatly, refusing to look at him.

            "That's all right, cheri," Gambit purred.  "I think you'll find that I got energy to-" 

            His pick up line was cut off as he collided with something.  He turned around and smirked.

            "Shouldn't you be inside, boy?" Gambit said.  Avalanche scowled.

            "I got plans, jerk," Lance snapped, and looked at Rogue.

            "You wanna get outta here?" he said, gesturing to the driveway.  Rogue nodded and followed Lance to his Jeep.

            "Take care, cheri!" Gambit called after her, putting his coat back on with a flourish.  Rogue didn't acknowledge him as she got into the Jeep, and she and Lance drove off.

            Remy watched the car go, smiling even as the drizzle turned into a hard rain.  His reverie was shattered when something swept his legs from under him, then struck him in the jaw and kicked him in the spine before he hit the ground.  He opened his eyes to see Pietro standing above him, rain dripping from his fore-locks.

            "I thought I made it clear that you were to keep away from me and my team unless we're on a mission."

            "By your pere's math, I outrank you, boy," Gambit growled, letting fly three of his playing cards, charged to explode.

            "Way too slow," Quicksilver said, easily avoiding all of Gambit's shots.  "And math's so basic, so boring, don't you think?"

            Gambit picked himself up off the pavement, not fooled by Quicksilver's relaxed stance.

            "If math's too basic, allow me to take you to school," he retorted.

            Gambit reached into his coat, and with a tug, his staff snapped together.  He attacked, trying to crack Pietro's knee with a well placed blow.  Quicksilver dodged everything so fast that anyone watching would've thought the staff just went through him.

            "Slow.  Geriatric.  Snail.  Tree sloth.  Plate-tectonics _slow,_"  Pietro said after each shot.  "How are you with physics?  Me, I love it.  There's a formula for everything.  Speed equals change in distance over change in time," he started, running a few circles around the other mutant in a microsecond.

            "Velocity equals mass over speed," he continued, "Acceleration equals change in velocity over change in time."

            Gambit doubled over, as Pietro's fist slammed into his solar plexus.

            "Force equals mass times acceleration.  Which is why me hitting you hurts ever much more than you'd expect."

            Gambit coughed, forcing himself to straighten up after a few moments of gasping.

            "I always preferred poetry to science," Gambit replied.  "For example: Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a belle, but could not keep her."

            All the grim amusement vanished from Pietro's face.

            "My name's not fucking Peter, and what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

            "You must really believe in Magneto's ideas.  Gave up your friends, your sister, your girlfriend-"

            "She's _still _my girlfriend," Pietro snapped without thinking.  Gambit smiled, red eyes shining darkly in the rainstorm.

            "You sure she knows that, mon ami?"

            Pietro grabbed Gambit by the lapels of his trench coat and started running, far too fast for Gambit to struggle or for any protests to be heard.  An hour later, Pietro came to a stop and dropped the other mutant.

            "When you get back, you tell Magneto to send someone else to do his surveillance for him, because if I ever catch you near my team again, you're gonna be a smear down fifty miles of I-90.  And the girl is off limits.  To all of you."  

            Pietro gave him the coldest smile Gambit had ever seen on a man other than Magneto, and added, "By the way.  Welcome to Canada."  

            Quicksilver was gone in a flash, and Gambit sighed.  Just what he needed, he thought as he tried to sort out a way to get home from Quebec.

            "I hate that kid," he muttered.

            "It's cool, hon, you can do better," Rogue said, taking another hit off the sweet port wine Lance had bought for her.  

            "You too," Lance agreed, finishing off his eighth beer.  "Yeah.  We can both do better."

            "We must be real oblivious though, cause I totally didn't see that one coming," she said, flopping back against Lance's bed as they sat on the floor, getting trashed.  

            "Hey Lance," a voice came as the door creaked open.  "Have you seen my-"

            "Todd!!" Rogue and Lance shouted, raising their bottles in a toast and beaming.

            "Um… hi?"  Todd replied, hiding partly behind the door in case one of them decided to throw one.    "I was just checking to see if my shoes was in here.  What're you doing?"

            "We're starting a new club!"  Lance said.

            "The Brotherhood-" Rogue started.

            "-and Sisterhood," Lance graciously added for her.

            "Of Unceremoniously Dumped Mutants," Rogue finished.  Todd looked a little afraid.

            "Uh huh…" he said.

            "Yep!" Lance said.  "We're gonna stay inside and drink until humanity and mutants have killed each other off."

            "Then we'll go back out and drink some more!" Rogue said.

            "Great.  So no shoes, huh?"

            "Nope, no shoes," Rogue said as Lance struggled to pull his off, thinking this was a new rule for membership in the B&SOUDM.  All three froze, however, as they heard an angry voice from behind Todd.

            "Look, if that prick with the cards shows up here again, you _tell_ me, all right?" Todd tripped forward as he was shoved from behind.  "I'm sick and tired of this cloak and dagger macho bullsh-"

            Pietro immediately shut up as he got past Todd into Lance's room.

            "Out!" Lance roared dramatically.  "This club is for the unceremoniously dumped, not those who dump unceremim-  unceremoniously.  You're not qualified."

            "Are you drunk?" Pietro asked Lance, though he couldn't seem to break eye contact with Rogue.

            "Lil' bit," Lance replied, holding his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart.

            "I'm outta here, yo," Todd said, hopping past Pietro and out the door.  "Y'all are fucking silly."

            For some reason, Lance seemed to take great exception to this remark, barging past Pietro after Todd, shouting, 

            "Who the hell are you calling silly?!  Hey!  Get back here!  Come down from there!"

            Pietro walked in the rest of the way, cautiously, as though he might trip or make too much noise that Rogue might spook and run away.

            "Hi," he said to her.  She just gazed at him with a sorrowful and slightly dazed expression.

            "Hi," she said back.

            "Are you drunk too?" he asked.  She looked down the neck of her wine bottle with a very grave expression.

            "Pretty much."

            "What are you doing way out here?" he asked, taking a step closer.  

            "Trouble at home," Rogue said.  "What are you doing back?"

            "Being in charge, and generally despised," he said.  Rogue looked down at the floor.

            "So all of y'all are working for Magneto now?"

            Pietro took a deep breath and blew it out very slowly.

            "Sort of," he replied.  Tears filled Rogue's eyes, and she unsteadily scrambled to her feet.

            "Rogue, wait wait wait wait wait wait," Pietro said, grabbing her arm.  It was only the third time he'd ever seen her cry, and the first time it was genuinely and completely his fault.

            "Leave me alone, Pietro," she said, trying to hide the fact that she'd been crying.

            "Come on, Stripes, if you go back to Xavier's like this it's just gonna make everything worse."

            "It doesn't matter," she sobbed, pulling out into the hallway, Pietro trailing off her arm the whole way.  "I don't care."

            "Look, just sit and talk with me for a while?" he said, coaxing her down the hall.  Reluctantly, but too worn down to resist, she let him pull her into his room and closed the door.  He sat on the bed, patting the space next to him.  She shook her head, arms folded across her chest, wine bottle dangling loosely from one hand.  Pietro rolled his eyes.

            "Stripes, sit _someplace_, you're wobbling," he said.  Indeed, she was swaying gently with her intoxication.  She responded by sitting exactly where she was on the floor.

            "Fair enough," Pietro sighed, getting down on the floor and sitting across from her.

            "So what's going on?" he asked.

            "Are you _serious?"_ she asked.  "I was captured by the army, I can't seem to talk to anyone anymore without them getting all Oprah on me, you _dumped _me and started-"

            "Wait wait wait.  I dumped you?  When did I _dump_ you?" Pietro cried out.  "I never broke up with you!"

            Rogue's jaw dropped.

            "You led me into a trap with a giant mutant killing robot and your crazy father!" she shouted, giving him a shove.

            "I told you to trust me!" Pietro protested.

            "You nearly got me dissected and then you disappeared!"  Rogue shouted.  "And then you tell me nothing's changed?  What the _hell _is going on with you?"  

            "I have a plan, okay?" he replied.

            "I'd love to hear it!"  she shouted, taking a swig off the bottle.

            "I can't tell you, cause if I do, Grey and Xavier will pick it right out of your head and ruin everything!"

            "They won't if it's a good plan!"

            "It's _not _a good plan, it's a _terrible _plan!"  Pietro shouted back.  "But it's all I have to work with, so I'm just gonna have to go with it!"  he continued, frantically fast.  "And I wish I'd never thought of it, but it's the only way to get on with my stupid life!  And everyone else's for that matter!"

            "So we're right back where we started!"

            "No, we're not," Pietro said.  "Because this time we're in the same room this time.  I haven't lied to you once, which is why I keep telling you that I can't _tell _you anything!  But for the record I did _not _dump you, break up with you or blow you off.  Yes, I admit, I nearly got you killed, but it wasn't the first time, was it, and it probably won't be the last what with our lives being an epic super-powered soap opera, but I promise I'll never get you all the way killed, and if this works, everything'll be so much better.  So, will you forgive me?"

            Rogue rubbed her forehead and sighed.

            "No," she grumbled.  Pietro put on his best sad puppy face.

            "Please?"

            "God _damn _it," Rogue muttered, wiping her eyes and smearing her eye shadow all over the place.  Pietro tried not to laugh at her, cute as she was, her nose slightly pink from alcohol and crying.

            "Well?" he asked.

            "Fine," she said.  He smiled broadly.  "But you're still in trouble, you sneaky son of a bitch.  You're lucky I love you," she growled as she got up unsteadily.

            "Where you going?" he asked, unable to wipe the smile off his face.  She still loved him.

            "To the bathroom, nosy."

            As she walked down the hall, she heard Lance whining at someone to leave him alone.

            "No way man, you're too big of a bitch when you're hung over; now drink this water or I'll make sure you die like Hendrix."

            She shook her head, smiling.  She'd forgotten how weirdly tender their brand of 'brotherly love' could be.  What she'd seen of the Morlocks, living with the Brotherhood, even living with Mystique and Destiny, those arrangements had all seemed so natural, even though she didn't belong with the Morlocks, and she hoped to god she didn't belong with Mystique, living with the Brotherhood had been different.  Not great, not magnificent, just different.

            She walked into the bathroom and washed her face, and looked at her slightly intoxicated self in the mirror and gave herself a smile.  Then, out loud, she asked herself a question.

            "So which matters more to you, sugar?  Who's on the team… or who's leading it?"  


	9. F & Run

AN: Short chapter.  Still debating the question I posed in the reviews: to stick with the show, or let the story run its own course.  If you wanna weigh in, drop me an e-mail at MBLite@hotmail.com, please mention FF.net in the subject line, since I get a lot of spam at that address and I don't want to accidentally delete anyone's mail.  I'm trying to get Pietro less OOC, we'll see how that goes.  

On a side note: It's 7:16 a.m.  I haven't been up this early since high school.  Why the hell am I awake?

"_I woke up alarmed, I didn't know where I was at first, _

_Just then I woke up in your arms,_

_And almost immediately I felt sorry 'cause_

_I didn't think this would happen again,_

_No matter what I could do or say,_

_Just that I didn't think this would happen again,_

_With or without my best intentions."_

_-Liz Phair, 'Fuck and Run'_

            Rogue woke up, her mouth and brain feeling fuzzy.  It took her a minute to remember where she was.  Pietro had offered to take her home, back to the Institute, or if she didn't want to be seen with him, he'd get Todd or Freddy to walk her, but she asked him if she could stay there that night.  

            He must've said yes, because as the fog in her head cleared a bit, she felt the rare sensation of skin against her bare skin; an arm was draped over her, far too lean to be anyone's but Pietro's.  She was wearing a long t-shirt, and was somewhat relieved to find she was still wearing other key garments.  She turned around in Pietro's arms to face him, and a sulky expression marred his features at the disruption, then smoothed out as she snuggled against his chest.

            "What time is it?" she muttered, closing her eyes.  He craned his neck to see over her to his alarm clock, and swallowed hard.

            "About quarter of one."

            Rogue's eyes snapped open with sudden clarity.

            "_What?"_ she shouted.  She scrambled off the bed, paused for a moment, then scrambled around at top speed, collecting her clothes.

            "What are you doing?" he asked, smiling a little.  She looked up, gaping at him.

            "Do you have _any _idea how much trouble I'm in?  I missed curfew, danger room exercises-"

            "You're only in trouble if you go back," he pointed out.  She stopped, standing on one foot, her jeans halfway on.

            "What do you mean?"

            "We could keep you here."

            "I'm _not _working for Magneto," Rogue said, and returned to dressing.

            "You wouldn't have to," Pietro said.  "You could just live here."

            "Somehow I don't think Magneto would agree to that."

            "So?  He never comes here.  The prick with the cards watches us for the old man, and I don't think he's coming back."

            "Why not?"

            Pietro smirked and looked at his fingernails.

            "I was all manly and roughed him up a little bit."

            Rogue gave him a disapproving look.

            "What!"  Pietro cried.  "He bothers my friends who are really mad at me and don't need any more trouble from him, _and_ constantly makes passes at my girlfriend.  So I hit him a few times and hauled him to Canada."

            "They're gonna come lookin' for me," she said.

            "Yeah, but Xavier's all about the free will.  'We can't force you to join us Rogue,'" he said, doing a poor impression of the professor.  Rogue smiled and bit her lower lip.

            "Gimme a minute, okay?"

            She walked down the stairs, picked up the phone and dialed.

            "Hello?"

            "Scott?"

            "Rogue?" he exclaimed.  "Where are you?  Are you okay?"

            "Yeah.  I'm not coming back for a while.  I need some time."

            "What?  How long is a while?"

            "Evan was right, it's all just too much right now.  If I don't get things back in perspective, I'm gonna go outta my mind."

            "Will you at least tell me where you're gonna be?"

            Rogue glanced up to the top of the stairs where Pietro stood.

            "You don't wanna know," she replied, and hung up.

            "Another one bites the dust," Scott sighed as he hung up the phone.

            "Scott?  What is it?" Jean asked, walking in from the kitchen.

            "We just lost Rogue," Scott replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and glaring at the phone.

            "Lost?  Lost how?"

            "She said she's not coming back, and that I didn't want to know where she was."

            "Which can only mean-"

            "Bingo."

            Jean sat down heavily on the couch; Scott plopped down beside her.

            "How could she do this after everything we-"

            "After everything we what, Scott?"  Jean sighed, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling.  "You got ruby glasses that let you see again, I get daily psychic coaching, and I get a little better every day, what did she get?  Mandatory aerobics classes and a lifetime supply of gloves.  We never really helped her."

            Scott sighed and leaned forward and rested his chin in his hands, staring at the floor.

            "It's not like we didn't _want _to. It's just… what more could we do?"

            "I have no idea," Jean sighed.  "But how long was she supposed to hang around waiting for us to figure it out?  At least over there she fits in, you know?"

            "I better go tell the professor he needs to pick a second person for the main team," Scott said.

            "How's Bobby taking his promotion?"

            "Not bad," Scot shrugged, standing up.  "Hates the way it happened, but he's more than ready for it.  Who do you think he'll have step up for Rogue?"

            "Maybe Magma, maybe Berserker.  Who knows," Jean shrugged.

            "You gonna miss her?" Scott asked.  Jean stood up and hugged him, sighing.

            "I don't know," Jean said honestly.  "It's almost like she was never here."

            Rogue had gone back to bed after calling Scott to sleep off the rest of her hangover and think, in whichever order she could manage.  Wanda had moved into her old room, and Mystique's was still full of all her stuff, which just made Rogue nervous, but Pietro didn't seem to have a problem with sharing a bed with her, although Todd, Lance and Freddy all arched eyebrows at the idea.

            Lance was grouchy in spite of Todd's forced hydration, though Pietro and not a hangover was really to blame.  Lance was set to fixing the Jeep- Pietro informed him that he was taking Rogue on several dates that night to celebrate her liberation from the X-Geeks.  Lance had questioned the wisdom of hauling a girl who'd been through a great deal around on the town all night, and Pietro had blithely told him to go to hell, then insulted his clothes.  Freddy was doing the cooking, and was fairly good at it, while Todd was on the roof adjusting the antenna.  Pietro couldn't help himself, he'd been bossed around by Lance for so long, and he promised himself he'd quit abusing them in a couple days, or maybe when the sheer niftiness of being leader wore off.  

            They were on the verge of mutiny when Wanda showed up, Todd leading her right to him, but fortunately, she didn't stick around long, didn't break much, and didn't injure anyone before she left again.  She came back the next day with a disturbingly cheerful outlook on life and no memory of why she was mad at her father.

            "What the hell happened to her?" Rogue whispered in Pietro's ear as they stood in the kitchen cleaning up dishes, after the mutiny from earlier was re-staged, this time with Wanda's help.  

            "Magneto did something to her head."

            "You don't think she just… got over it?"  Rogue asked.  Pietro gave her a look.  "Guess not," Rogue sighed.  

            "Nope."

            "But he can't just do that, screw with people's heads that way!" Rogue whispered insistently.  Pietro gave her another look.

            "Sweetheart, darling, how quickly you forget.  Xavier?  Soccer game?" he reminded.

            "Oh.  Yeah.  Jeez, they really are a lot alike," she sighed.  

            "They used to be friends," Pietro said.  "Me and Wanda used to play with Xavier's kid while he and Magneto were inside, discussing the fate of the world and all that crap."

            "Xavier's got a son of his own?"

            "Son, ex-wife, the whole bag.  Magneto filled me in on all of it, I remember some of it myself.  Not a pretty picture, I can tell you that much.  Very Stepford mutants in its own trippy way."

            "Christ, is that like part of being a mutant or something?  You're automatically a lousy parent?"

            "Sure looks that way.  But don't worry gorgeous," Pietro said.  "It can't last forever.  We'll grow up, and it'll be our turn to fuck up someone else's life."

            "That's not very comforting," Rogue sighed, drying a dish.  Pietro smiled warmly.

            "Don't be so sure, Stripes.  One of these days, I'll give you the whole wide world, rebuilt from the ground up, just for you, and me, and Wanda, and those idiots in the living room.  And we'll force it to be fair to us," he said, dabbing soap bubbles onto her nose.

            "Now that's comforting," Rogue laughed, smiling at her boyfriend's far-fetched promises of a future she doubted they'd ever see, and leaning in to kiss him.

            "Hey!  Ozzy an' Harriet!" Todd shouted, bouncing into the room.  "_Sex in the City'_s on."

            "When the hell did we get cable?" Pietro said, turning out of his kiss.

            "Enh, no big thing.  Lance bet Forge that he couldn't whip up an antenna that could pick up satellite feeds from Japan.  Now come on, I don' wanna miss any of the strip club scenes!"

            Rogue rolled her eyes, and Pietro turned back to her, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

            "Brave new world, hot stuff."

  



	10. I Can't Wait

AN: Another really short chapter, sorry, as the summary says, this chapter contains an unflattering portrayal of an X-Man who's usually portrayed fairly well in fanfiction.  Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed, I'm letting the story take its own route now; if next episode provides any useful material, I'll wedge it in here, but the fork has officially begun.  Anyway, enough talk from me, fanfiction now.

"I can't wait till you try to come back girl, when things they don't work out for you  
who do you think you 're messing with girl, what do you think you're trying to do?  
  
Who do you think you 're messing with girl, what do you think you're trying to do?  
Do you really think I wanna be laughed at, girl?  
Who do you think you're tryin' to fool?"

_-The White Stripes, "I Can't Wait"_

            The closing credits for _The Sopranos _were rolling when the door was kicked in.  All of the Brotherhood jumped as Logan stopped into the house and lifted Rogue up off the couch by her left arm.

            "Hey!  Logan-" Rogue protested.

            "Shut up, home, now," Logan growled back.  

            "Logan, I talked to Scott-" 

            "You better stop worrying about Summers and worry like hell about me," he cut her off again, giving her a shake.  Lance stood, picked up the remote and shut off the TV.

            "You better get your ass back on that couch, shakedown, I'm not in the mood for this shit," Logan hissed, attempting to haul Rogue across the back of the couch.  Todd wrapped his arms around her knees and refused to let go.

            "Hey, would someone who's not me step up to the plate, yo?"  he said, hanging on desperately.

            "Logan, you're hurting me!" Rogue said, more pissed off than scared.

            "You heard the lady," Blob said, standing up and lumbering over to face Wolverine, who immediately swept his legs from beneath him and sent him crashing to the floor.

            "If she's such a lady, then why the hell is she shacking up with that-"  Logan turned to where Pietro had been sitting, a space that was mysteriously empty.  "See that?" he said.  "Where's your little Romeo now?"  

            A large pine chair splintered over Wolverine's head, swinging at about sixty five miles an hour.  It stunned him enough for Rogue to wrench out of his grip.

            "Hey na hey na," Pietro grinned grimly, tossing aside the remains, which were now as good as firewood and zipping away before his head was impaled on three claws.

            With that gesture, Wolverine found that his claws had turned into serpents which were trying to bite his hands.

            "Don't you _ever _try to hurt my family!" Wanda shrieked, rising off the couch like a thing possessed.  Wolverine recovered his composure and flung the nearest thing he could grab at her- and it turned out to be Todd.  The two of them crashed against the wall, and Wolverine's claws returned to normal.  Pietro bolted over to help his friend and sister as Lance and Rogue faced off against Wolverine.  

            "You need to keep the fuck out of my house," Lance growled.  

            "Our house!" Pietro, Wanda, Todd and Freddy all shouted from their various positions.

            "And you need to quit screwing the girls in _my _house," Logan snarled.  Lance was about to destroy the living room, again, when Rogue's hand slapped against his t-shirt.

            "Hold these," she said, and when she took her hand away, Lance found himself holding a pair of leather driving gloves.  

            "What are you-" he started to ask her.  Wolverine was slashing away at the spaces where Quicksilver used to be, all the while being mocked by the speed demon, when Rogue walked up directly behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned and swung at her, and rather than dodging the blow, she stepped into it.  Wolverine's claws sank into her chest, right through the heart, protruding from her back just below her shoulder blade.  An expression of absolute horror washed across his face.

            "Stripes?" he whispered.  

            She was obviously in pain, but she didn't cry out.  She put both hands on his face, not gently, fingertips digging into his skin.  

            "Remember this," she said quietly, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as she drew out his healing factor to repair the damage she'd allowed to be done.  His legs went out from under him, his claws retracting as he slipped into unconsciousness. With Wolverine on the floor, Rogue could see Pietro, who'd been standing behind him, looking like his hummingbird fast heart had come to a dead stop as he saw her bleeding one moment, then saw each slit close itself, leaving only the blood she'd already lost and three thin scars.

            Rogue turned to Lance and gently took her gloves back from him.  

            "Come on," she said.  "We sure as hell don't want him to wake up here."


	11. Just Like Anyone

AN:  Did anyone else have trouble getting this site to work yesterday?  Enh, whatever.  Another short chapter, in which, yeah, for real this time, the core nature of Pietro's plan is revealed.  More soon, much love, -me.

  


_So maybe I wasn't   
that good a friend  
but you were one of us  
and I will wonder  
just like anyone  
if there was something  
else I could've done  
  
-Aimee Mann, "Just Like Anyone"_

            "You all don't have to come with me, you know.  I mean, if you don't want to," Rogue said as the other members of the Brotherhood helped her pile Logan into the Jeep.  

            "Please.  If nothing else, this proves that they are _actively _not taking this well," Pietro replied, glaring at Logan.  "Metal skeleton, he'd sink real quick, and I don't think his healing factor would apply to a couple lungs full of water.  You sure we can't just dump him in the bay?"

            "Yes, I'm sure," Rogue replied.  Pietro kept looking at the holes in her bloodstained shirt and wanting to argue.  

            "Are you gonna have enough room for your stuff?" Wanda said as they all piled into the car, Lance driving, Wanda between him and Logan, who was in the front passengers seat, Todd, Rogue and Pietro in the back.  Freddy decided to remain behind both because he'd rather not be cramped, and someone had to mind the fort in case Logan had just been a diversion.  

            "Yeah, I've only got about a box worth."

            "Mansion go boom," Pietro reminded his sister as Lance started the engine.  They drove over, fairly quickly, lest Logan wake up on the way.  They rode in silence, and it only took a few minutes to reach the mansion.  Even from the gates outside, they could see the lights were on; people were up.  They got out of the Jeep, Rogue supporting Wolverine under one arm, Lance under the other.  She leaned in close to the gate, crossing her fingers that they hadn't changed the security codes yet as a beam of light passed over her eye.

            "Clearance granted, welcome Rogue," a mechanical voice said as the gates opened.  The five mutants and their unconscious cargo made their way towards the door.  It opened before they hit the doorstep, as Rogue and Lance were setting Logan carefully down.  Rogue looked up to see her reflection in red, as Lance stepped back, her friends ready to step in at any minute if things got ugly.

            "Is he okay?" Scott asked, leaning down to check Logan's pulse.

            "Wrong question, Summers," Lance muttered.  Scott caught sight of the holes in Rogue's shirt, though the red of his glasses made him uncertain what caused the stains around them.

            "Is that blood?" he asked.

            "Yeah," Rogue replied.

            "Whose?" he asked.

            "Mine," she answered.  Scott picked up Logan's hand and indeed saw a sticky, dark liquid congealing around the sheaths.  "Did you send him?" Rogue asked.

            "How can you ask me that?" Scott gasped, straightening up.

            "If the answer's no, just say so," she said back.

            "You know Logan, Rogue, he does what he wants.  The answer's no," Scott said.  

            "Can I go in and pick up my clothes?" she asked him.  Scott looked at her, then at the other four members of the Brotherhood who stood defensively behind her.

            "If they wait outside."

            "Oh, yeah, sure Captain Myopia, we'll just hang out here on the porch while you take Rogue back inside and wait for Xavier to release the dogs, or the bees, or the dogs with bees in their mouths," Pietro rattled off.  

            "One of them," Rogue said.  "I think the entire X mansion could probably take care of themselves, don't you?"

            "Deal," Scott said, picking up Logan in a fireman's carry.

            Pietro followed her in without thinking, smiling at his sister and Lance.

            "If we're not out in ten minutes, Avalanche, shake this place back to rubble, got it?"

            "Loud and clear, fearless leader," Lance replied with a withering glare at Scott.  As Scott shut the door, he could still feel the eyes of Scarlet Witch, Avalanche, and Toad burning into his back.  

            "Will you be okay if I go and take Logan to the Infirmary?"  Scott asked, readjusting Logan's heavy metal lined frame over his shoulder.  Rogue nodded, and Scott wasn't sure what to feel as she reached out for Pietro's hand, and she led him to the staircase which went down to the rooms in the basement.

            _She's going down, Professor, _Scott thought. _You'd better alert Jean in case… I don't know.  In case.  _

            _I understand, Scott._

            Jean got the message and stepped out of her room just as Rogue and Pietro hit the bottom of the stairs.

            "Hey," she said, regulating her tone so that she didn't sound overly excited, nor did she sound cold or angry.

            "Hey," Rogue said back.  Pietro froze in his tracks.

            "I have to leave," he said.

            "What?" Rogue said, turning to look at him.  His face held a stricken expression, and he backed away from Jean towards the stairs.

            "I forgot something."

            Jean's jaw dropped.

            "Are you _insane?_" she shouted.  "You can't do that!"

            Rogue looked back and forth between the two of them.  

            "What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.

            "Shut up, Grey," Pietro growled, backing up further, only to collide with the invisible wall Jean had erected at the base of the stairs.

            "He'll kill you!  There's no way you'll be able to do it!  And how can you even _think _that, he's your father for god's sake!"

            "I said shut _up!_" Pietro screamed at her.  Rogue stepped between them, taking hold of Pietro's chin.

            "Sugar, tell me, what's the matter?" Rogue said gently.  

            _He's going to kill Magneto, _Jean's voice spoke in her head.

            Pietro looked ill as the image in Rogue's eyes changed from concern to shock.  

            "Oh my god…" she whispered.  

            "We can't stay here, the others are waiting," Pietro said, eyes darting all over the place, giving her a pleading look.  Rogue swallowed hard and nodded slightly, then turned around and walked down the hall towards her room.  As he walked past, Pietro swung his head to cast a look of pure hate at Jean.

            _I will get you for this, you bitch, _he thought hard at her.  She flinched a little, but her resolve was not so shaken that she didn't immediately relay what she'd seen to Xavier.  

            The other students started to emerge to see what all the noise was about, but froze in their doorways as they saw Rogue and Pietro's retreating backs.

            Kitty sat quietly on her bed as Rogue gathered her meager possessions- a small pile of clothes, her photo from the dance, and her journal.  Everything else had been lost in the explosion.  She tried to catch Kitty's eye as she and Pietro left the room, give her a reassuring smile, maybe receive one back, but Kitty wouldn't look up.  

            The hallway back up the stairs had become a silent gauntlet for Rogue.  All the other young mutants had emerged from their rooms to stare as Rogue left with Magneto's son.  They looked at her intently until she tried to make eye contact- then they resorted to foot shuffling and coughing and staring at their shoes.  

            Jean shot Quicksilver a warning look, silently trying to discourage his absurd aspirations of patricide, but the glance she got in return was killing frost, an assurance that if she ruined this plan for him, he would find a way to ruin her life.  So far she'd only told Xavier, and the look on Pietro's face was making her regret even that.  He slipped his free arm around Rogue's waist and turned away, looking up the stairs.

            Rogue wasn't really surprised that no one would look her in the face.  After a while, she just kept her eyes ahead, on the staircase.  The Brotherhood was waiting outside, and then she could ask Pietro about what Jean had pushed in her head, when they were alone, together, away from everyone's eyes.  

            His arm was tense around her waist as they reached the top of the stairs, slowly coming into view of Xavier, Scott, and Dr. McCoy.  

            "Quicksilver-" Xavier started.  

            "Save it, Mister Clean," Pietro snapped.  "Whatever Red told you, keep it to yourself, if you start with the meddling save me from myself shtick, you're gonna save myself from reaching legal adulthood, get me?"

            "This plan of yours-"

            "A da da da da da!" Pietro replied, holding up a hand.  "Zip it, not up for discussion, the floor is closed, this meeting is adjourned, no questions from the press, I have no comment at this time other than _keep your mouth, _and your brain, _shut.  _You stand to benefit from this almost as much as I do, so just keep out of the way, your hands stay clean, and mine get delightfully dirty.  You start blathering about it, you get me killed.  I don't give a damn about your conscience, and I sure as hell don't need you to give a damn about mine."

            "Rogue, are you sure this is what you want?" Xavier said as the two opened the front door.

            "Even if I wasn't, I'd still go," she said over her shoulder.  "And this time, you might wanna change the locks.  Thanks for all your help, but I don't need it anymore."

            The door shut.


	12. Shivers

AN:  Well, as spiffy as Self Possessed was, I can't fit it into the story without, well, breaking the story, at least not yet.  So I guess from here this fic's on its own.  I've gone back through the whole thing and tried to iron out Pietro's OOCness, and I've changed all the chapter titles to the titles of the song that heads it.  Wow, I haven't updated in a while, I suck.  Anyway.  Pleh.  Moving on.  

_"I keep her photograph against my heart  
for in my life she plays a starring part  
all alcohol and cigarettes  
there is no room for cheap regrets_

_But my baby's so vain  
she is almost a mirror  
and the sound of her name  
sends a permanent shiver down my spine…"_

_-Nick Cave cover of "Shivers"_

            "Does Lance know?"  Rogue whispered as she and Pietro lay on the bed, face to face in the dark.  

            "No.  No one was supposed to know, and _no one else can._"

            "Shhh, I know.  But I still don't get it, I mean-"

            "Do you know how old my father is, Rogue?"

            "I dunno.  Mid-fifties?"

            "Have you looked at him lately?"

            "Not up close, he's always got his helmet on."

            Pietro sighed and brushed her face with his fingertips blindly.

            "Bastard might as well be twenty five.  He doesn't even think about it, but he's been using his mutation to keep himself young."

            "That's impossible!"

            "It's not.  Everyone ages a second at a time, it's cells deteriorating, toxins building up, DNA degrading.  What if every time something like that happened, you just undid it?  Or stopped it from happening at all?  His little stint in his cauldron on Asteroid M made him strong enough to turn back the clock to when his body was at its peak.  Now it's far too simple for him to hold off time.  I told you yesterday that it couldn't last forever, but he _can._  So what else can I do?"

            "There's gotta be another way."

            Pietro snorted.

            "Are you kidding?  What am I gonna do, negotiate with him?  Even if I run away, he'll find me.  Jesus, I can see it now, I'll be wearing depends, eating applesauce in a nursing home sixty years from now, and he'll show up and tell me he has a job for me."

            "Why don't you just tell him no?"  Rogue asked, wriggling one arm underneath him and pulling closer.

            "It's him or me.  He thinks I'm his because he donated some fucking sperm.  He won't let me go.  God, you saw what he did to Wanda.  If I don't pretend to go along with him, he'll make that creepy bastard Mastermind screw with me until I don't know what I know.  No matter how many memories he changes, he can't change who he is, and he won't let me go until he's fucking dead."

            Pietro squeezed Rogue tightly, breathing in the smell of her hair.

            "It's like you told Xavier.  Anything I plan, he can screw up, anything I build, he can rip apart.  And anything I care about he can take away.  I can't live like that anymore."

            Rogue swallowed hard as he felt his voice vibrate through her head against his throat.  

            "How are you going to do it?"  Pietro sighed and turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling.  

            "That's kind of where my brilliant, no good, worst plan ever starts to deteriorate," he sighed, putting his hands behind his head.  "I've already missed my best shot.  I could have just let the sentinel crush him.  Wanda had him powerless, all I had to do was nothing at all."

            "Why did you save him?"

            She bit her lip gently as Pietro turned and looked at her, winter blue eyes all lit up with love as he reached out again to touch her face.

            "You were captured, so was Freddy.  I wasn't sure if there were more Sentinels, hell, Magneto didn't even know.  I couldn't risk letting him die yet.  Even I have to admit he comes in handy from time to time.  Especially against giant robots," he turned his head back towards the ceiling and smiled.  "But now we're safe as houses, at least on the giant robot front, and Wanda's back on our side, and she's a hell of a powerhouse."

            "But Wanda isn't after Magneto anymore."

            Pietro's face darkened as he remembered Wanda coming home, blithely ignorant of her misspent childhood trapped in a mental hospital.  

            "For now," he said.  "Magneto's not a better man.  I don't think he'll be able to hide what he is for long.  She's a smart girl, she'll figure it out.  The old man will screw up again, and I'll be ready when he does."

            Rogue lay beside him and turned to stare at the ceiling herself.  How many times had she seen Mystique and wanted to tear her head from her body?  How many times had the woman fucked something up for her?  And how could she be sure that Mystique wouldn't do it again?  She wasn't sure who said them, it couldn't have been her, but the next words which came out of her mouth were:

            "What can I do to help?"

            The room was dim and full of sullen silence as five men sat around a heavy oak table.  Gambit's bruises had faded to a greenish yellow, but the damage to his pride was still a fresh, open wound.  He had thought that Magneto's son was just a pawn, just evidence of some vestigial interest in blood ties on the part of his father.  Gambit realized that he had underestimated the boy's fighting abilities, but what shocked him most was the ruthless cruelty which had surfaced when Quicksilver had attacked him. The boy hadn't even flinched at the one sidedness of the fight.  No hesitation, even when he was dragging Gambit to Canada at the speed of sound.  Clearly Magneto's son had inherited more from his father than the white of his hair or the blue of his eyes.

            Gambit had tried to relate Quicksilver's threats and demands to Magneto, but had been told to keep his mouth shut: bigger problems had arisen.  

            There was no love lost between Colossus and Magneto, but even less was misplaced between the Russian and the Cajun.  Piotr couldn't keep the tiny smirk off his normally stoic face at the sight of Gambit sputtering as Magneto informed him that he was physically, psychologically and spiritually incapable of caring less if Gambit and Quicksilver killed one another in their spare time, so long as it didn't adversely affect the missions.  Piotr's had been the most demure reaction; Pyro shrieked with laughter, and Sabertooth let out a throaty growl which passed for a snicker.  But there were indeed much bigger problems on the horizon.  

            It was difficult to see Magneto's face when he wore his helm, which was any time he was on the same continent as Xavier.  The shadows obscured his face, his voice appeared to emerge from them, rumbling like thunder from dark and distant clouds.

            "It has come to my attention that a well funded, U.N. affiliated anti-mutant group has developed a device modeled after Xavier's Cerebro system.  If it is perfected, they will be able to track, locate, and kill specific mutants.  And I think we all know who'll make the top of the list."

            "Does the Cerebro not require a mind reader to work?" Piotr asked.  

            "They call it the Sibyl system, and it differs," Magneto replied.  "Cerebro is a tool, strengthening the abilities of its willing telepathic user.  To the Sybil, the mutant is just a battery, and cannot control or resist the process.  Too much strain and the mind shatters.  I have no doubt that we will find many catatonic mutants whose minds have been raped for their abilities.  

            "There are few telepaths who approach Xavier's capacity, but if this group were to capture one, there would be no place left for any mutant to hide.  Unfortunately for them, I've managed to uncover the location of this marvelous new toy of theirs.  You will go in two teams: Colossus, you will lead the first, taking Blob, Gambit, Toad and Sabertooth.  Your task will be to crush the human guard.  Quicksilver will lead Avalanche, Pyro, and Scarlet Witch.  Their task will be to destroy the Sibyl and turn the facilities to dust, and rescue any cognizant mutant survivors."

            Magneto smiled within the helm's depths.

            "Perhaps then they will learn that they are not the hunters, but the prey."

            "Hey!  Avengers assemble, Mousketeer roll call, time to form Voltron, let's go!"  Pietro hollered, zipping from room to room and rousing the troops.

            "Pietro, if this is another fucking drill, so help me christ-" Lance grumbled, stumbling downstairs.

            "Au contraire, mon frere," Pietro replied.  "This is the real McCoy, criminal mischief and mayhem.  Apparently some pack of humans has gone and cooked themselves up a Cerebro of their very own."

            Pietro relayed the details of the mission and ordered everyone to go suit up for the rendezvous with Magneto, shooed them all out, and then turned to Rogue, kneeling in front of where she sat and resting his chin on her knees.

            "You okay with house sitting?" he asked her, who remained on the couch looking fretful even as he playfully walked his fingers up her thigh.

            "I'll  be fine," she said.  "It's y'all I'm worried about."

            "You kiddin'?" Pietro replied.  "It's a routine destruction of property gig.  Wanda destroys the info, me and Pyro destroy the machine, Lance puts the building in the ground.  We did the same thing after Star Wars: Episode Two."

            "I'm serious, Pietro," Rogue said, catching his hands and kissing his fingertips.  "Watch your back."

            "Sweetness," he said, bounding up onto the couch and sprawling in her lap, draping his arms around her neck.  "They won't even know what hit him."

            The rendezvous point was an abandoned warehouse by Boston harbor.  Magneto chose it because it had once had skylights, a few of which were missing.  This made it the easiest place to store and from which to deploy the metal spheres in which his followers traveled.  

            All were suiting up.  Night vision goggles, paler thermal versions of the usual uniforms for a stealthier operation in the Antarctic, as well as the usual materials.  

            "Hey Quicksilver!" Gambit called with a nasty smile.

            "Yessss?"  Quicksilver replied, looking at Gambit through the red-lensed night vision goggles.

            "How's your pretty girlfriend?" 

            "She's just swell, Gambit.  Speaking of swelling, how's your pretty jaw?  Might wanna keep icing it?"

            Gambit scowled and Quicksilver turned as he heard a small noise behind him, and saw Colossus laughing quietly.  

            "It's time.  Move out," Magneto growled.

            As the metal pod closed around him, Quicksilver pulled a hastily taken photo of Rogue from inside his shirt, right over his heart.  She'd been caught like a deer in headlights, her eyes wide, hair messed up, her cereal spoon in her mouth and the cereal box in her hand, as she tried to sort out how many kinds of sugar could be in one simple foodstuff.  He raised the polaroid to his lips and kissed the image of her startled face.

            "See you soon, gorgeous."


	13. Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow

AN:  Jesus tapdancing christ it's gotten hard to keep a story on the front page of this section for more than four hours!  Anyway.  Here's another chapter, more should be coming shortly.  This will probably replace Tag as my longest fic very soon.  Thanks for reading and/or reviewing.

_is anybody   
out there please?   
it's too quiet in here   
and i'm beginning to freeze   
i've got icicles hanging   
from my knees   
under fifteen feet of pure white snow_

_-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, 'Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow'_

            The spheres touched down in two groups: Colossus' team in front, Quicksilver's directly behind.  The spheres split open, and in spite of the thermal gear, each mutant was shocked by the blast of cold air.  They climbed out of the thin shells and stepped down onto icy tundra in the dead of night.  

            "Report," Magneto's voice said in their ears.

            Colossus blinked behind his goggles.

            "There is nothing here," he said, "Just ice."

            "No scent," Sabertooth growled.  "You sure you got the coordinates right?"

            "Don't insult me.  The facility must be underground.  Pyro.  See if you can't put a leak in their roof."

            Flames danced from Pyro's fingers across the ice and snow, taking on the form of penguins in spots as he tried to melt into the ice cap.

            "You're so fucking weird," Todd started to say.  He was cut off mid-sentiment, however, as he was struck by a mesh of needles and wires which flashed as a current ran through them.

            "Oh hell," Quicksilver said.  "It's a trap!" he shouted through his communicator.  "Somewhere between a hundred and fifty and two hundred soldiers, packing tazers, possibly more.  Toad is down."

            "Get back to the transport," Magneto replied.  Quicksilver surveyed the hundred plus soldiers surrounding them, and the number of them between them and the spheres.

            "Yeah.  Sure.  We'll get right on that," Quicksilver said.  "You heard the boss, everyone, strategic withdrawal!"

            He zipped across the ice and scooped up Todd, but the snow hindered his speed and the ice hindered his traction.  He saw Wanda hit the ground, stopped too hard and skidded out of control.  The tazer hit him before he was able to regain his feet.  In the ice and snow, he fell into unconsciousness.

            "Status!" Magneto shouted.

            "Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Toad are down.  Avalanche and Blob are safely in transports.  Sabertooth, Pyro, I cannot tell.  Gambit and I are holding off the soldiers."

            "Evacuate."

            "What about the captives?"

            "We'll regroup and come back for them.  Go."

            Gambit leapt into his sphere without hesitation, Piotr more reluctantly.  The last thing he was as the transport sealed shut was a group of soldiers shackling Quicksilver's legs with heavy chains.

            Rogue was bored, sitting and watching TV, eating dry Froot Loops out of the box, and worrying out of her mind.  She'd bitten her fingernails down to the quick, and her fingertips ached.  There was no certainty on how long this mission should take, and three hours after they'd been gone she was convinced that they should've been back.  So she hadn't slept, just sat on the couch and listened for any sound coming from the driveway.  She was listening so intently that the noise with which the door slammed open nearly stopped her heart.

            She leapt to her feet as the first figure entered the house.  All six two of Magneto's imposing self strode through the door.

            "Oh sit down," he snapped.  "I knew you were here."

            Rogue's eyes snapped off of him as Gambit, Colossus, Avalanche and Blob slunk in behind him.

            "Where is he?" Rogue asked Lance.  Lance scowled darkly.

            "We got tricked.  Pietro and the others got captured."

            "What?" she asked.  "By who?"

            "We don't know yet, we will soon find out," Magneto said.  "I will not be made a fool of.  The rescue party will consist of Gambit, Colossus, Rogue and myself."

            "Hey!"  Lance started to protest, Blob preparing to join in.  Magneto transfixed them like bugs on an index cards with a single look, and replied,

            "Silence.  This is an extraction operation, it requires finesse and a degree of discretion.  You two possess neither.  You," he said turning to Rogue.  "Clean yourself up and get into uniform, I don't have time to waste.  Let's see if you're worthy of Quicksilver's high regard."

            Rogue ran up the stairs to the room she shared with Pietro to prepare.  Back on the first floor, Lance spoke up.

            "How are you gonna find them?"

            Magneto clenched his fist.  

            "Those damned hairless apes aren't the only ones with a Cerebro, Avalanche."

            Lance raised an eyebrow.

            "What makes you think he'll let you use it?"

            Magneto's smile could be heard in his voice as he answered.

            "Oh, I'm sure he will, if I ask nicely."


	14. Cornflake Girl

AN: Well, here's another chapter.  I guess I'm going for the short and frequent approach as opposed to the long and few and far between.  In the next few chapters, there'll be a few characters yoinked from the Ultimate X-Men comic book, which is _damn _fine piece of comic, and which I highly recommend.  You know those obnoxious little circles with X's in them saying "see _Uncanny X-Men _issue # 235"?  Yeah, well, none of that, marvelous (no pun intended) artwork, and Mark Millar has totally won me over to the Marvel side of the force with his writing.  Go pick one up today.  Thanks for reading and/or reviewing.  

_Never was a cornflake girl  
Thought that was a good solution  
Hangin' with the raisin girls  
She's gone to the other side  
Given us a yo-heave-ho  
Things are getting kind of gross  
And I go at sleepy time  
This is not real this a this this is not really happening  
You bet your life it is_

_You bet your life it is_

_Oh honey you bet your life…_

_-Tori Amos, "Cornflake Girl"_

            Every alarm in the Institute was screaming blue murder.  The main team had been practicing in the Danger Room, and were fortunate enough to have their adrenaline pumping already.  They pounded up stairs and down the corridor: whatever was coming was planning on walking in through the front door.

            The new front team of Cyclops, Jean, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, Magma and Iceman assembled, backed by Storm, Wolverine and Xavier, every pulse pounding hard.

            It was just not a good day to be a door.  The hinges on the outside of the front door twisted and popped, then flew through the wall like bullets, and the door tipped in towards them.  Magneto floated in the door, and did not speak.  The X-team was surrounded by a cage of fire in mid air, which only Magma and Nightcrawler could escape.  Jean guarded the rest of them, Magma swallowing hard as she faced down Magneto himself as her first test on the main team.  

            _Nightcrawler, Magma, stand down, _Xavier's voice resonated in her mind.  _Let's see what he wants._  Magma stepped back by the group, overwhelmed with guilt, fear, and relief.  Kurt put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder once she cooled off, and the scared look in his eyes told her that she wasn't alone.  Magneto floated forward, the others following him.

            "What do you want, Magneto?" Scott shouted, fingers on his visor, prepared to take his shot.  

            "I need to borrow something," Magneto replied.  Xavier gave a startled cry as his wheelchair rose off the ground and moved along behind Magneto, the others following behind him.  

            "So this is how it is now, Stripes?" Logan growled as she walked past.  "Tell us to go screw one day, come back the next backing Magneto?"

            "You don't know anything," Rogue replied, face flushed with shame.  

            "I know you make me sick to my stomach," he said.  

            "Logan, don't," Jean said.  _Be careful, _she said in Rogue's mind.  _You're playing a very dangerous game.  It's not a threat, it's an observation.  You're already way in way over your head._

            _You're not wrong, _Rogue thought back, with a quick glance at Jean as she followed the others behind Magneto.  

            "Left or right, Rogue?" Magneto asked when they reached a particular point in the hallway.  

            "Left.  It's the big door.  Kinda hard to miss."

            Magneto turned where she said, and then used his powers to crumple the door to the Cerebro room like waxed paper.  He then plucked Xavier out of his chair and placed him in the seat of the device.  

            "Find me Sabertooth," Magneto said, floating behind him.  

            "Erik, what's going on?"

            "Shut up.  Find Sabertooth."

            "This isn't-" Xavier began to protest.  Magneto put his hands on Xavier's shoulders and leaned close to his ear.

            "Charles, the only reason I tolerate your continued existence is the hope that reality will sink into your skull and you will see that I am right and prove yourself useful.  However, if you stall for so much as another moment on this request, when you manage to crawl back downstairs, you will find your precious students are dead.  Find Sabertooth."

            Xavier swallowed hard and complied, giving Magneto the coordinates from whence Sabertooth's power emanated.  

            "Thank you Charles," Magneto said, drifting out of the Cerebro room and down the hall.  

            "This isn't over, Erik," Xavier replied as he floated out the door.  

            "Is it ever?" Magneto said as they turned the corner.  

            The X-Men let them pass without incident on orders from Xavier, and Magneto and his troops emerged into the sunlight.  

            "Where are they?"  Colossus asked.  

            "They are in the Nevada desert.  Let's get to the warehouse."  

            "Pietro?  Pietro please, please wake up," Wanda said.  She'd been at this since she woke up, which seemed like hours ago, though her fear was making it difficult to gauge the passage of time.  He finally groaned and started to stir. 

            "Wanda?  What the hell happened?"

            "I happened, sugar plum," a voice said.  Pietro opened his eyes to see a man wearing a khaki military uniform leaning against the bars of a cell.  Pietro could only assume this newcomer was on the outside, and that he and Wanda were in.  

            "You'll have to pardon me, I have a terrible memory for names and some jackass shot me with a tazer: who the fuck are you?"

            "I'm the heartless son of a bitch who's gonna make you wish you were never born, sunshine."

            "Do you have a shorter name?"  Pietro groaned, rubbing his eyes.  The man gave a broad, toothy grin that neither of the twins particularly cared for and replied.

            "My little mutant friends call me Colonel Wraith."


	15. What Jail is Like

AN:  Well, here's another one of my short lil' chapters.  Not much to say beyond that.  Thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing.

You think I'm proud of this?  
Well maybe,  
But the shame you never lose:  
Infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse,  
And it goes down every night,  
This must be what jail is really like,  
And I will scratch my way out of this pen, again.

_-The Afghan Whigs, "What Jail is Like"  
  
_

            "Colonel Wraith.  Super.  So what the hell do you want?"  Quicksilver said, gingerly standing up in his cell.  Wraith had dark hair, a mustache, a sleazy grin, and a face that would not have been out of place on a GI Joe villain-reject.  

            "Oh, the usual things, peace, love, understanding, but since that ain't gonna happen, I want a place in the winner's circle when the shit hits the fan.  You muties ain't gonna stop until human beings are dead and gone, and I'm afraid I gotta take issue with that.  So as of now, you, your sister, and your little friends, work for me.  You go where I say, you kill who I tell you to."

            "Oh, well that's fine, just as long as I don't have to dress like you, Sergeant Slaughter-"

            Pietro crumbled to the ground.  It felt like the acid in his stomach had burned up through his chest and throat and into his skull.

            "See, that's what we like to call insurance.  It's a little do hickey that our family doctor here put in your brain.  Just nifty.  All I gotta do is spin this little dial and I can put you in agony."

            Wraith knelt down closer to where Pietro was shivering on the floor.

            "Fuck with me again, honey pie, and all I gotta do is flip this switch.  I do that and your brain spills out all over the floor.  Or maybe it'll be little sister's here."

            Wraith turned the dial back to its normal setting as Wanda wrapped her arms around her brother.  

            "Our father will be here soon, Wraith.  And you don't know pain until you've pissed off Magneto," Wanda replied.  Wraith chuckled.

            "This the same daddy dearest who had you locked up in an insane asylum till a few months ago, sugar cane?  How's he gonna find you?"

            "Where are our friends?" Pietro said as Wanda looked very confused.

            "I got other people workin' on them.  You two are my special project.  See, your daddy's a bad man, but I figure you know that.  I've always believed that moral flexibility is genetic.  Me and my buddies got a bet going that you two are gonna take to hurting people like ducklings to water.  But enough about me.  Let's talk about your daddy.  Where's a man like Magneto like to hang out?"

            "We have no idea.  He comes to us, sets up neutral points to meet," Pietro replied.

            "And he'll come to you, once he figures out where you've taken us," Wanda said.  

            "Tell you what, witchy-poo," Wraith said as two soldiers approached the cell.  "You sit tight and wait for your daddy to show up.  Me and your brother are going to have a little chit-chat."

            The soldiers opened the cell and picked Pietro up off the floor.  

            "I want to go with him," Wanda said.  Wraith laughed.

            "And I wanna house in Key Largo, but that don't mean it's gonna happen."

            Wanda's fingers started to sparkle, but before she could use her powers, she found her brain as tormented as Pietro's had been.

            "You play that card again, cupcake, and I'll have the doc amputate your brother's legs and make him eat the muscle," Wraith said as the cell door shut and locked.  "Try not to miss me too hard."  

            Pietro was dumped back into the cell three hours.  Wraith didn't escort him personally this time, so there were no derisive remarks as Wanda hauled her brother off the floor and managed to get him onto one of the two cots in the cell.  He had track marks up and down his arms, his pupils were dilated and his limbs were twitching.  

            "I can't see.  Where am I?"  he gasped out, his voice shuddering as though he were freezing.  Wanda brushed his hair off his forehead, taking his hand and squeezing it gently.

            "You're back in the cell, I'm here," she said quietly.  "What happened?"

            "I don't know…" he said.  "They injected me with something, it made all my muscles burn… they took a lot of blood, put something in my eyes that made them tear up, everything they did burned.  Christ I'm tired…"  

            "Try to sleep," she said.  Pietro shook his head hard and grabbed Wanda's hand.

            "No," he said, shaking his head violently.  "They're gonna come for us soon."

            "Who?  Dad?"

            "She'll come and get us.  I fell into another universe where the monsters ruled and she still came and got me.  She always comes," Pietro said deliriously.  "She'll be here any minute."

            "Rogue?"

            "She's one of us now.  She always had been, but she's back with us now.  You can count on her, Wanda.  She won't let us down."

            Wanda gently lifted Pietro's head and sat on the cot, resting his head on her lap.

            "I can't wait for you to get to know her, Wanda," Pietro said, staring blindly up at the ceiling.  "You've got the same sense of humor in a lot of ways.  God, she's funny.  We should all play Scrabble some time.  When we get back to the house, we'll have a board game night.  What do we have besides Scrabble?"

            "Trivial Pursuit," she said quietly.  "That old board from the eighties.  All the answers to the political and geography questions are wrong."

            "Oh well… we could all play cards… or go outside and play tag before it gets too cold.  All the games we should've been playing when we were little.  I bet Todd's really good at hide and seek.  We can make Freddy be home base, he'll love it.  Do you remember when we were about five?  Django and Marya and the rest of the band had stopped the caravan in this beautiful glade, and we went with all the other children to chase fireflies…"

            "I remember."

            "Remind me when we get home to abuse my power as leader and decree firefly chasing once a week."

            "Marya used to call me her little firefly," Wanda said, feeling a strange, aching blend of happiness and sadness in her heart.  She and her brother had never talked about the time before Magneto had collected them, she thought he'd forgotten it all.

            "I forgot about that," Pietro said.  "But I remember now."

            "And they used to call you their hummingbird, because you were so fast.  I can't remember the Romany words."

            A smile cracked Pietro's face as he shut his eyes, there was no point in having them open, though his vision was slowly returning.

            "I hated that nickname," he said.  

            "I know," Wanda replied.  "You used to get so mad whenever Django used it, though I think you let Marya get away with it most of the time."

            "We should try to make the house more like the old band.  We all looked out for each other, back then."

            "We still do, Pietro, more or less.  Dad'll be here soon, and it'll all be okay."

            Pietro's smile slipped a bit.  He was becoming more coherent, his vision clearing, the burning in his body slowly fading.  Thank god Mastermind hadn't touched her memories of their brief childhood with the gypsies, with Django and Marya.  

            "You're right, Wanda," he said.  "Dad'll be here soon."

            "Can you handle this?"  Magneto asked Rogue on their way to the warehouse in Boston.  "I don't want anything to jeopardize my mission."

            "How are you going to find out where they are if I don't go?" Rogue replied coldly.  Colossus was driving the SUV which was taking them all to Boston, Gambit riding shotgun and Rogue sitting uncomfortably next to Magneto in the back seat.  It was like someone had put Pietro's eyes and hair onto a different body, stuck a different soul behind the eyes.  A soul which held most of the world in contempt, and considered the rest a complete waste of space.  

            "I'll convince them."

            "You mean hurt them until they talk or die."

            "If need be," Magneto replied.  "Usually fear takes over long before such measures are required.  I suppose you intend to talk them to death.  That is what Xavier taught you, of course?"

            "I slip them some skin, and I know everything I need to.  Best part is, it's not like they can lie."

            "How very passive aggressive."

            Rogue glared at him, still discomfited by the fact that Magneto seemed far too young to be anyone's father, especially not Pietro and Wanda's.

            "By the way," she said.  "If my boyfriend comes out of this with so much as a scratch on him, I'm gonna take it out on you."

            Magneto snorted.  

            "You have no powers except the ones you steal.  You are no threat to me."

            "That's funny, cause when I stole your powers, you were damn scared.  Did it hurt?"

            "Be quiet."

            "Everyone else says it hurts."

            "Be.  Quiet.  Your threats are especially pathetic since it is clear that your affections for my son are solely due to the fact that you can touch him."

            "What are your affections based on?  Oh, right, the whole Darth Vader thing," Rogue replied.

            "I could kill you right here," Magneto said in a bored voice.

            "Magneto, I could kill you and _be_ you in one easy step.  All I want is my friends back."

            "Your friends all work for me you stupid little cow," Magneto answered.  "Now shut up.  You're giving me a headache."

            They sat in silence for the rest of the trip.  

AN2:  Well, yeah, Pietro was OOC, but he was drugged.  That's a little Marvelicious back story, which isn't quite congruous with X-Men Evo or Tag!  Wanda and Pietro were raised by gypsies named Django and Marya Maximoff.  Romany is the gypsy language, and glory eternal to anyone who can actually find out the Romany words for firefly and hummingbird.  I figure Magneto picked the twins up when they were about seven or eight, cause that's about how old chibi-Pietro and chibi-Wanda look on Evo, at least to me.  End of excuses.


	16. Blue

AN:  This is, in my opinion, kind of an odd chapter.  I saw two indy movies this weekend and I've been reading _Dangerous Angels, The Weetzie Bat Books._  My perspective's been shifting around a lot, and I feel odd.  So the chapter's odd.  It's also fairly violent, so be warned.  Today's soundtrack piece is a gorgeous, rip your heart out beautiful song that appeared in an episode of Buffy the vampire slayer and was cowritten by Joss Whedon and Angie Hart.  Angie Hart performed it, and is also the singer for the band Splendid.  I just hope they release it on CD, because it really is that beautiful.  Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing, I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and here goes nothing.

_High tide, inside,_

_The air is dew,_

_And where were you?_

_Wild eyed, I died,_

_And where were you?_

…

_I fell into the moon,_

_And it covered you in blue._

_I fell into the moon,_

_Can I make it right?_

_Can I spend the night_

_Alone?_

_-Angie Hart, "Blue"_

            The pods touched down in the desert sand just before sunset.  Rogue had slept in the pod on the way over, since she'd been up all night waiting for the others to return.  It was odd and not entirely comfortable, but she was ready to murder anyone who got in her way, and that was partly out of the pent up fury she'd accumulated in the car sitting next to Magneto for a couple hours.  

            They made their final approach on foot, moving west towards the squat black buildings behind which the setting sun burned.  Hard black, gritty white, and liquid red in a liquid sky.

            "How much metal is in there?"  Colossus asked Magneto.  Rogue glanced at his face and saw the faintest smile behind his helmet.

            "Mines and mines full," Magneto replied.  "Titanium and adamantium to make them feel safe and sound and unafraid.  When will they realize that somewhere, there is always a wolf big enough to blow their houses in?"

            Rogue rolled her eyes and trudged on.  And they'd all thought Pietro had a big ego.  

            "Wait here," Magneto said.  The others stopped as he kept going.  It wasn't long before they spotted him and started firing shot after shot at him.  Each bullet splatted against the spherical shield he'd put around himself, the lead spreading as though the army was just firing paintballs.   Rogue held her breath as Magneto's invisible shield was completely covered in dull dark gray.  Eventually, the army stopped firing bullets and began a hasty switch to grenade launchers.

            The layer of gray around Magneto exploded forward like fine leaden tentacles, which then split into splinters.  Everyone who had fired a shot fell as a splinter of their own bullets worked its way into their skull through the eye, deep into the brainpan and down, severing critical parts of the brainstem and ensuring that those soldiers would never get up again. 

            The soldiers with the grenade launchers found that their ammunition stopped immediately upon leaving the weapon, made a ninety degree turn and then pressed hot metal against their foreheads, searing their skin just before their heads were obliterated.  The remaining few ran, but made it only a few paces away before their dog tags flew into the air of their own volition.  Tongues protruded, legs kicked uselessly in midair, and fingernails dug into neck-flesh, but for nothing, as these remaining few found themselves hanged, six feet off the ground, by their own identification.  Magneto dropped them and raised his right hand, sweeping it from left to right as though brushing away dust.  The metal-rich face of the building ripped away.

            The other mutants stood shocked as Magneto turned back to them, his background a ravaged black building, acrid smoke and a sky from which the liquid red was draining onto the pale sand of the earth, staining the desert bloody.

            "Whenever you're ready, children," Magneto said.

            The other three walked forward into the destruction at his command.

            He had three children he was never going to see again.  He had a wife named Anna who was making curry for dinner, because she'd gotten a new cookbook that she wanted to try, and he had meant to get a pizza on the way home because his three children who he would never see again wouldn't like curry because it was spicy and different and not peanut butter and jelly or macaroni and cheese.  He hated the white haired boy and the black-and-red-haired girl and the sallow faced boy with yellow eyes and the red haired man and he hated Sabertooth.  But he'd always hated Sabertooth, the others he hated brand-new, he was only just learning how to hate them.  He was starting to get the hang of it, starting to gather specifics to despise, but then the lights had all flashed red and the sirens had howled and the face of the building had been torn aside.  He'd tried to pull his gun, but it jammed, and then it seemed to become very heavy and pinned his hand to the ground.  He knelt there and a girl walked up to him, and she'd touched his face and there was black for a second.

            Then he saw the gun float out of his hand and level itself at his own forehead, and fire.  The girl yelled at the man who stood behind her, a demon in a red cape with no face, and he gave a cold reply.  The girl looked down at his body regretfully, and he did the same, and thought about the three children and the wife named Anna who he would never see again, because he could see through this girl's eyes that he was quite dead.  His world faded out very slowly, and only the girl was behind the eyes again.

            "Why did you do that?" Rogue shrieked at Magneto.  "He would've been in a coma for weeks, he couldn't hurt you!"

            "Where are the captives?" Magneto asked coldly.  

            "Pyro, Quicksilver, Sabertooth and Toad are all in their cells, I've got the codes.  Scarlet Witch is in a different room.  He didn't know what goes on in there."

            "Where is that room?" Magneto asked.  Rogue gave him directions.

            "Gambit, come with me, Rogue and Colossus, go fetch the others.  Meet back here," Magneto ordered, then turned sharply down the hall, cape flowing behind him.  Gambit turned and smiled at the other two.

            "Take care, mes amies," he said.  "'Specially you, cheri."  He then jogged down the hall after the boss.

            "I hate that guy," Rogue muttered, striding down the hall in different direction.  Colossus took out most of the people they encountered with a relatively gentle punch from a giant metal fist.  As they approached the cell block, Rogue took one out herself to double check the lock codes.

            In her head, she saw a flash of white, a pale hand on the arm of a metal chair, a face invisible behind shell after shell of technology.  The Sibyl.  Then they hit the cells.

            Toad had only been worked over once and was in fine shape.  Sabertooth's healing factor had undone all prior damage, and he had apparently not been scheduled for more that day.  They could run on their own.  Quicksilver had mostly recovered from his previous procedure, but as she punched the code into his cell, he gazed at Rogue with dark circles under his eyes.  

            "Where's Wanda?"  he asked.

            "Different room," Rogue replied, getting under his arm and helping him up.  He stood with her support for a moment, then stepped away, his legs working on their own.

            "Where's Magneto?" 

            "He and Gambit are getting her."

            The last question was asked in a completely different tone:

            "Where's Wraith?"

            "He's with Wanda."  

            Pietro nodded and leaned down, picking up a gun that a soldier had dropped.  He stood back up, kissed Rogue, and walked down the hall.

            "Hey!  Magneto was right, about the Sibyl!"

            "I'll be right with you," he called back, the gun hanging from his hand as he turned the corner.

            Rogue nearly started after him, but a large hand on her shoulder stopped her.

            "The Sibyl?" Colossus said, more like a question.  Rogue sighed and ran down yet another hallway, Colossus right behind her.  

            Colossus easily broke down the door to the Sibyl room, and Rogue took out the scientist sitting there running the thing.  They looked at the monolith of metal plates, cables, wires and cords, and in the midst of it all, Rogue caught sight of a small hand.  

            "Jesus.  There's someone in there," she said.  "Start taking it apart, but be careful, we don't wanna crush her."

            "What are you going to do?" Colossus asked as Rogue ran towards the door.

            "I'm gonna get Magneto."

            Wanda would never watch _A Clockwork Orange _ever again.  She sat strapped to her chair, her eyes taped open, stung with eye drops every few seconds not to relieve pain, but so she wouldn't miss a second of the action.

            It was a slideshow, and she was the star.  Not the her that she remembered, although she was beginning to think that her memories were not to be trusted.  A little girl being dropped at an asylum by a white haired man.  She was eight years old.  She was frightened and alone, and did not have a shred of non-medical human contact until she was sixteen.  Eight years, half her life, isolated, meals under doors, injections, psychoanalysis, straitjackets, medications, pills, discipline and four soft, white walls were her entire world.  

            And Wanda felt something inside herself as Colonel Wraith narrated each frame.  Like a well of gasoline from her throat to her gut, she felt eight years of fury reawaken inside her.  The truth has a flavor, a taste that pretty lies lack, especially when that truth is bitter, and she recognized it.  

            The restraints over her arms warped and twisted and pinned Wraith against the wall.  She did not get up, she didn't turn, she just kept staring at the projection screen, where her eight year old self sat alone, huddled in a corner in a straitjacket.  A red-gloved hand fell on her shoulder and she glanced at it.  

            Pietro paused in his swift walk as Magneto came flying backwards out of the door he was heading for and slammed against the wall.  He glanced coldly down at his groaning father, whose helmet slipped from his head as he hit the ground, then stepped over him and walked into the room, and stopped as he saw Wanda.  Wanda looked over Pietro's shoulder to look at Magneto, Pietro looked over Wanda's to look at Wraith, who was coughing on the floor.  They turned sideways and let each other pass.  

            Wanda raised her hands and Magneto was powerless.  Pietro kicked Wraith so that he was on his back, facing up.  Rogue came around the corner and ran down the hallway.  She saw Wanda pick up the gun and level it at Magneto.

            _"What can I do to help?" _she had asked Pietro.  

            _"You don't get to help.  You're my angel and my hero and you don't get to help.  You just stay you, and kiss me when it's over."_

Rogue walked past Wanda and into the room, where the slide of an eight year old girl to whom the words Scarlet Witch meant nothing was still projected onto the wall, just in time to see Pietro level the gun at Colonel Wraith.  She heard Wraith mutter something and laugh, and then watched as Pietro squeezed the trigger, pulled back the hammer, and repeated the action even after he'd emptied the clip into Wraith's head, the sound of hollow, empty clicks echoing through the room.

            Rogue walked up behind him and didn't look down at Wraith, would not and could not.  She touched Pietro's shoulder and he let go of the gun and turned and stepped into her arms, shivering.  She kissed his forehead and stroked his hair with her hands and held him.  

            "What did he say to you baby?" she asked him softly.  Pietro looked at her with teary eyes.

            "'Like ducks to water,'" Pietro answered her.  Both looked up sharply as they heard a sharp cry from outside the door.

            "Cheri, would you get the fuck out here before this bitch kills us all?"  Gambit shouted.

            "Go," Pietro said.  "Stop her."

            "But this is the best chance-" Rogue started.  Pietro just shook his head.

            "If she kills him she'll never be okay again, she'll just be angry and in pain for the rest of her life.  Killing him can't be the central event in her life if she's ever going to move on.  Besides, I'm just guessing he's our ride."

            Rogue stepped outside and put her hands on Wanda's bare neck, and Wanda fell.  Rogue caught her and lifted her gently into Colossus' arms.  Rogue felt those red hot wires of crackling power buzzing through her, a heat in her hands just dying to get out.  Inside her chest, flowing up to her throat, she felt a gasoline-well of rage for the man on the floor in front of her.  

            "Gambit, where're the others?"

            "I sent 'em out to guard the transports, just in case the grunts tried to ambush us," Gambit replied.

            "Magneto?" Rogue asked.  He was out cold, no amount of shaking was going to wake him.  She knelt down and touched his face, counting to five, then stood.  "Gambit, get Magneto to the transports.  You and Colossus might wanna trade, he's heavy."

            "How are we gonna get home if he's out?" Colossus asked as Gambit accepted the unconscious Scarlet Witch.  

            "I'll take care of it," Rogue replied.  She had all three of their powers warring inside her now, Magneto's, Wanda's and Pietro's.  Wanda was fire, Magneto was steel at absolute zero, and Pietro was the wind, which could be sweet and gentle or which could flay you alive, who could empty a gun into a bad man's brain.  Rogue took a deep breath, and tried to balance them all, with herself in the center.  It was her mind, she was in charge.  She was in charge.  They walked out, and no one tried to stop them.  Pietro stood beside her and squeezed her hand, but had to look away when she looked at him with eyes as blue as his father's and sister's.  Colossus put Magneto into a metal shell which Sabertooth found himself obliged to share.  Pietro took Wanda and climbed into one, Colossus and Toad shared another, and Gambit and the unconscious girl who they'd found in the Sibyl in the last.  

            "You sure you don't wanna get cozy with me in here, cheri?" he said to Rogue.  He was nearly decapitated as she raised her hand and the sphere sealed around him.

            "I'm new at this, and I'd like to be able to see where I'm going," she replied.  The others safely clear, she closed all the shells and rose off the ground, then raised her hands.  The metal followed her actions like her own shadow, and without the slightest strain, she took herself and them to the air, and began the trip through the night, away from the bloody sand and smoking ruins.  She let herself cry as she flew, but whether they were Wanda's tears or her own, she was not sure.  


	17. Hallelujah

AN- Okay, here we go.  Chapter 17.  This chapter contains the usual adult language, a smidgen of violence or references to past violence, and some **other **adult content.  That's right!  What could it be?  If it's not language, and it's not violence, oh my god, it must be sex.  Anyway.  Moving on, here ya go.  I love you all.

_"Well, maybe there's a God above,   
But all I've ever learned from love,   
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.  
But it's not a cry that you hear at night   
It's not somebody who's seen the light   
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."_

_-Jeff Buckley, performing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen_

            _"Excuse me,"  _a voice said in Rogue's head.  It didn't sound like Wanda, the only female she'd touched today.

            "Um… yeah?" she said out loud.

            _"Are you in charge here?" _the voice asked.

            "Not exactly.  But the official leader is unconscious, and I'm getting us home-"

            _"Magnificent.  You don't need to talk out loud.  You're liable to get a bug in your mouth."_

            _"Not this high up," _Rogue thought back, but complied.  _"Who are you?"_

_            "I'm the person you took out of Wraith's bloody monstrosity, the Sibyl.  My name is Emma Frost, of the Boston Frosts.  And you are?"_

_            "Rogue," _Rogue said.

            _"Rogue…?"_

_            "Just Rogue."_

_            "How quaint.  In any case, thank you for the rescue, but I would dearly like to get out of this contraption and away from this…person who seems to think I should be pleased to be in such close quarters with him."_

Gambit, Rogue realized.  Better her than me, she thought.

            _"I heard that, and I can't say I agree with you."_

_            "We're almost home.  If he gets fresh, you have my permission to break his jaw."_

_            "I don't need anyone's permission for anything," _Emma replied haughtily, and severed the connection.  

            Rogue brought the spheres down in the warehouse and opened them, then landed herself.  Pietro was at her side in a second, seeming oddly clingier than usual, but Rogue hardly minded.  Wanda and Magneto were out cold, Colossus, Toad, Pyro and Sabertooth were fine, out of their transports and checking on Magneto and Wanda.  The girl called Emma had emerged from the transport looking furious, Gambit had emerged moments later with an imprint of her hand on his face.  Todd sat on the ground next to Wanda and held her hand, stroking her hair and murmuring calming things that she couldn't hear.  

            "Colossus, are you okay to drive?" Rogue asked.  The taller man nodded, and carefully picked up Magneto, who didn't look so large now that he was limp as a rag doll.  He put him in the back seat and buckled his seatbelt, and, as an afterthought, gently placed his helm back on his head, drew the cape around him.  

            "Is he alive?" Sabertooth growled.

            "Yes," Colossus replied, backing his way out of the car.  "He's alive."

            "We're all alive," Pietro said distantly.  "Good for us."

            The others looked at him strangely as Rogue quickly changed the subject.

            "Can we go home?" she asked.  Emma studied her fingernails and answered.

            "They think you're in charge now," she said.  "You got them- and me- away from that horrible place.  Welcome to the wonderful world of leadership.  Some of them want to listen to him," she said, glancing at Pietro, "but he's not saying anything.  So if you want to go home, then by all means, drop me off at the nearest five star hotel and go home."

            "Do your parents know you're a mutant?" Todd asked her.

            "No, as a matter of fact they don't.  I didn't know until my whirlwind jaunt away from my school.  My parents are probably still waiting for a ransom note."

            "You think they're gonna be all lovey dovey once they know what their kid is?"  Todd said, looking at Wanda's fingers.  "Your dad's a big deal right?  Your mom too, probably?  How much of your trust fund you wanna bet that your dad's gonna be more concerned about how he can get you to play the stock market for him?  Or that your mom's gonna pump you for gossip on the rest of the Stepford bitches around town, huh?  Or maybe they'll just wanna forget about you altogether."

            "Do not make the mistake of comparing my parents to yours," was all the cool mannered girl replied.  Todd looked up with a harsh expression and stared her down.  

            "Let's get something straight, cupcake, nobody busted into Fort Bragg to save your ass, they came to get us.  The only reason you're not pork chops in that place is that Rogue here is a big softy.  Although I think that has a _lot _to do the fact that when she met you, your bitch ass was unconscious."

            "Enough," Pietro said.  "We'll drop you wherever you want to go.  Rogue, kill those pods, we're gonna have to find a new base of ops.  Everybody else get in that fucking car."

            Pietro's usual impatient authority wasn't in his voice.  He looked more tired than Rogue had seen him since before he became immune to her touch, and a different tired as well.  Rogue raised a hand and each of the spheres crumpled into a small, dense pile of scrap.  

            Emma got into the back seat next to Magneto, rolling her eyes as Gambit sat next to her, face still pink from her slap.  Todd sat down and pulled Wanda next to him, his eyes pale with concern as he buckled her seatbelt and gently rested her head on his shoulder, Colossus got into the driver's seat, and Sabertooth took shotgun.  Pyro sat next to Wanda and Todd in the middle row, leaving the car quite full.  

            "Can you run?" Rogue whispered quietly to Pietro.

            "Yeah.  It's been way too long since we went for a run," Pietro replied.  "Colossus, take the blonde chick to whatever hotel she wants to go to, I'm sure if she drops her name they'll bend over backwards for her."

            "You'd best believe it," she said.  "This is my town."

            "That's swell, we don't care," Pietro replied.  "Take her to the Four Seasons or wherever the hell rich people go these days and meet us back at the house."

            Colossus nodded and pulled the SUV out of the warehouse, as Rogue and Pietro watched them drive away into the night.

            "You okay sugar?" Rogue asked him, stroking his hair.  

            "Pretty far from it, actually," he said.  "But can we talk about it at home?  I just want to get away from here."

            Rogue responded by taking his hand, and faster than sound they ran off across Massachusetts, back to Bayville.

            Rogue and Pietro beat the others home by over an hour.  They greeted Lance and Fred, who actually hugged them both, much to Rogue's surprise and Pietro's profound discomfort.  Then Rogue and Pietro slunk back up to their room and locked the door behind them.

            Rogue stripped off gear dusty from the desert, the destruction, and stained with blood, Pietro the white scrub-like prison uniform provided by Wraith's organization.  It was then that she saw the full extent of the track marks on his arms, the bruises from where the table restraints had dug into his skin, an angry puncture mark where they'd tapped his spinal fluid, and several fine, thin lines of stitches where they'd taken bone, marrow, and muscle samples.  One up the back of his left calf, one across his collarbone, and one along his left forearm.  He turned and caught her staring at him in the moonlight coming in through the window, her eyes full of tears.

            "Oh no.  No no no no no no no," he started, rolling his eyes.  "That's the pity face, you know how much I hate the pity face."

            "I'm so sorry," she said.  His expression shifted from exasperation to anger.

            "What for?  You're not the moron who got captured.  I told you not to fucking pity me, it's not like it's a big deal."

            "How can you say that?"

            "What, so another psycho wanted to turn me into a killing machine for some stupid cause, it's not like it's the first time.  Fuck, Magneto's been trying for years, Mystique gave it a shot too, Wraith just made the most progress.  He just didn't think I'd start with him."

            "Pietro," Rogue said, her tears ebbing away.  

            "What!" he shouted, throwing his arms apart.  "Why are you looking at me like that?  It happened, didn't it?  You saw me do it."

            "Stop it."

            "He was lying there helpless and I shot him six times in the head, Rogue!  Did you blink or something?  Do you think Magneto popped out of unconsciousness just long enough to make the gun go off by itself?"

            Rogue stood up and grabbed Pietro's shoulders, entering a staring contest with eyes burning propane blue with rage.

            "Wraith hurt you," she said.  

            "He did hurt me," Pietro replied with a dark sneer.

            "He hurt Wanda."

            "He hurt Wanda," Pietro repeated, the words bitter in his mouth.

            "You killed him," Rogue said, steady and intense.

            "Yes.  I killed him."

            "And you liked it," Rogue said.

            "No," Pietro said, the burn inside him reaching a climax, breaking.  "I hated it.  But I did it anyway because of him."

            "I know."  

            "He was right about me," Pietro said.  "He said that I'd take to hurting people-"

            "Like a duck to water," Rogue finished for him, moving her hands from his shoulders down to his upper arms, gripping him more gently.

            "He was right.  It was so easy," he said, grabbing Rogue's shoulders.  

            "Is it still easy?" Rogue asked, reaching up and holding his chin, forcing him to meet her stare as he tried to look away.  "It was easy when you did it, but is it still easy now?"

            "No," Pietro said quietly.  "But-"

            "But nothing.  He wasn't right about you.  You're nothing like him, and you're nothing like Magneto.  You're my angel and my hero and I love you.  You just stay you, and I'll always be here when it's over.  No matter what happens."

            The way he kissed her could be called cliché in a lot of ways.  She was air and he was drowning, he was water and she'd been in the desert far too long.  It bruised and hurt and ended too soon, but while it was going on, no one and nothing else existed for either of them.  Some clichés exist because they're just that good.  

            Lance was nearly knocked down the stairs by a gust of wind which he knew had to be either Rogue or Pietro.  He'd come upstairs because he'd heard shouting, and he knew how both of them could get.  He braced himself as he saw the blur returning from the bathroom, but it stopped in front of him this time, and Lance saw it was Rogue.

            "Hey, are you guys all right?" he asked.  Then he saw the small cardboard box Rogue had in her hand and his jaw dropped as he caught a glimpse of the printing on it.  Twenty-four lubricated latex… "Are those my-?"

            Rogue put her finger to her lips and he shut up.  

            "What am I supposed to tell everyone when the others get back?" Lance exclaimed in a stage whisper.  Rogue shrugged as she shut the door.

            "Tell 'em the truth.  We got sleepy."

            The door clicked shut, locked, and unless Lance's ears deceived him, the dresser was being pushed in front of the door.  

            Lance rubbed his forehead and walked back downstairs.  At least those idiots were practicing safe _something _for once.  On an older brother level, he was intensely weirded out.  

            _Rogue.  And Pietro.  Ew, _he thought.  _Not okay on a variety of levels.  And they both have speed powers.  Oh god, bad, bad image.  _

            "Lance!" Fred shouted for the third time as his friend stood looking shell shocked at the bottom of the stairs.

            "Whuh?"  Lance replied, snapping out of it, looking none the less traumatized.

            "What's your deal, man, you've been standing there for like a whole minute.  Where's Rogue and Quicky?"

            "Uh… they got sleepy," was all Lance could reply.

            Meanwhile, upstairs, Rogue and Pietro did their best to replace all their memories of pain with something sweeter.

AN2:  Okay, in case I didn't spell it out enough for you, the word that follows lubricated and latex is CONDOMS.  That's right.  And while the gods know I can't stop you, I do recommend that you avoid sex during high school, which is stressful and traumatic enough without adding any extra drama to the bag.  But _if you must, _dammit, PRACTICE SAFE SEX.  Which does not mean withdrawal or some half-assed rhythm method (there is a real rhythm method, but it has to be taught, it's not just guessing) or luck.  That means condoms to protect you from (most) STDs and if you're smart something extra to protect you from pregnancy.  That way you won't be biting your nails worrying all the time.  Anyway, end of political rant.  Take care of yourselves, all.  

Anyway, chapter 18 will be coming as soon as it's written.  Thanks for reading and reviewing.    


	18. The Boy with the Bubblegun

AN: Not so much violence, but language, references to sex, and stirrings of things to come.  I may rename and resoundtrack this chapter if I find a better song, but for the moment, I'm more interested in getting it up and online.  Eternal thanks as always to those who read and/or review.  I'm trying to bring more of the rest of the Brotherhood into this fic, especially Wanda and Todd.  I have a tough time writing Freddy though, since it seems like all he cares about is food.  I'll work something out.  Anyway, here's number 18.

_It's time to kill the king: it's written in the scripture.  
See what tomorrow brings, got to get a bigger picture.  
So forgive me, forgive me, for I am born to be what I must be… and I must be…  
  
_

_-Tom McRae, "The Boy with the Bubblegun"_

            _Please don't let Magneto wake up, please don't let Magneto wake up,  please don't let Magneto wake up, I wonder how many times they've done it already?  It's been like forty minutes, argh, bad thoughts, scary thoughts, nightmare thoughts.  Please don't let Magneto wake up, I don't think I can handle this.  _

            "Hey.  Rocky.  You look all queasy-like," Todd said, breaking Lance's very unpleasant train of thought.  

            "Um.  I had some bad bologna for lunch."

            "Where the hell are Rogue and fearless leader, man?" Fred grumbled.  "Shouldn't Pietro be yelping orders?"

            Lance sighed, and told them for the fifth time since they'd gotten back almost an hour ago.

            "I told you, they were just really, really sleepy."

            He got a skeptical look from Freddy, Todd, Pyro and Colossus, who were sitting on the couch.  Sabertooth didn't like being indoors and told them to call him when something was happening, then stalked off, and Gambit had taken one look in the fridge, snorted, and said that he was going out, and that he'd be back with alcohol and possibly some food if he got around to it.  Sitting in the big easy-chair, his chin on his chest, was a still unconscious Magneto.

            "I hope Wanda's okay," Todd said, glancing up the stairs.  

            "What is his problem?" Fred said, staring at Magneto.  "You'd think he'd've come to by now, it's been hours!"

            "Enh, Rogue's touch can lay a man flat for a while, yo.  I just can't get over how much he looks like my drunk Uncle Chip did in his Santa costume back at my foster parents house."

            The coffee table with its broken two-by four leg started to shudder.  

            "Um… Lance?  You wanna cut that out?"  Todd said nervously.

            "Not me," Lance replied.  The screws holding the table together ripped out and began orbiting Magneto.

            "Crap damn…" Todd quavered.  "I think his highness is waking up."

            Magneto's head jerked up like a puppet's, and the screws fell to the ground.  

            "Where are we?" Magneto growled.  

            "Back in Bayville, but don't worry, we kept your helmet on an' all…" Todd stammered.  "Um…sir."

            "The mission?" he rumbled.

            "It was successful, Magneto.  We rescued all the captives, the offending leader has been killed, and the Sibyl destroyed, along with the facilities," Colossus reported.

            "Marvelous.  So where the hell is everyone, and what caused me to lose consciousness?"

            "We found you like that, sir," Colossus said.  "You would not wake up, so Rogue made use of your powers to get us back to the warehouse."

            "And the transports?" 

            "Rogue destroyed them."

            "You fools are not as useless as I thought.  Where is Rogue, and for that matter, everyone else?"

            At that moment, Gambit stepped through the door with a shopping bag full of liquor bottles and another full of food.

            "Okay, I got enough bourbon here to kill a rhi- oh.  Bon soir?" 

            Magneto rolled his eyes.

            "Another fool accounted for.  I assume Sabertooth got restless, what about Quicksilver?"

            "Rogue and Pietro got sleepy," Lance replied automatically.

            "Ma cheri, all tuckered out, perhaps I should go keep her company," Gambit said, setting down his bags and looking up the stairs.

            "You don't wanna do that man," Lance replied.  Gambit raised an eyebrow.

            "Gambit's certain that he does, mon ami.  I bet I can perk her back up."

            "She's fucking my son, you half-wit," Magneto replied with no little disgust.  A look of   horror and perhaps a little heartbreak passed over Gambit's face.

"I see," he said quietly, then reached into the bag and pulled out one of his bottles of rhinoceros-killing bourbon.  

            "Lastly, where is Scarlet Witch?" Magneto said.  Lance thought he caught a trace of apprehension in his voice.  

            The house started to rumble from the roof down. 

            "I think she just woke up," Todd said, gold eyes looking uneasily up towards the second floor.

            Rogue and Pietro had actually worn themselves out a while ago, and were in the act of unabashed snuggling.  

            "…king…..half-wit," they heard from downstairs.  Displeasure marred Pietro's features.

            "Fabulous.  Daddy's home," he muttered.  He and Rogue got up and quickly started dressing, until the dresser they'd placed in front of the door began to move on its own, shuddering across the vibrating floor.  

            "Fuck me.  So is Wanda," Pietro said.  He had only managed to get jeans on, Rogue had only managed underwear, gloves and a shirt, but they barreled against the dresser and ran out the door to the bedroom at lightning speed and burst through Wanda's door, pouncing on her, tackling her to the bed, and each holding down one hand.

            "Let go of me!"  Wanda growled.  "Let me go you fucking traitor, you power-stealing bitch!"

            "Wanda, keep it down," Rogue hissed.

            "We want him dead too," Pietro said.  "He screwed with your memories, and yeah, we know you want to kill him, but he's got about five different species of back-up downstairs, and I don't think you can take them all."

            "I could if you helped," Wanda replied, her gaze piercing first Pietro, then Rogue.

            "And we will," Rogue said.  "But now ain't the time."

            "She's right," Pietro agreed.  "If we try to bring him down now, he'll make sure he takes us all with him, and I'm not ready to swap my life for his."

            "You blew my first shot, and she blew my second!" Wanda snapped.

            "Third times a charm," Pietro said.  "We'll wait till he's off guard, and we'll take him apart.  It'll happen, he's not perfect."

            Wanda relaxed in their grip.  

            "That's for fucking sure," she growled, but her face softened a little.  "It feels like it was real, but what Wraith showed me, that felt… realer.  That person in my head… carousels and cotton candy and picnics, that never happened, right?"  

            Pietro eased his grip on her arm and squeezed her hand in his.

            "I really wish it had, but Marya and Django were the only real parents we ever had, firefly."

            She turned to look at Rogue.

            "And you want to help us?  For real?  You're not going to pull some X-Men bullshit about how killing is bad and everyone can see the light?"

            "I'm not."

            "Do you really love my brother?" Wanda asked, narrowing her eyes.

            "'Fraid so," Rogue said with a shrug.

            "You swear?" Wanda said, more desperate than skeptical.  Rogue let her arm go and held up her hands.

            "I swear, Wanda.  Blow up my head if you don't believe me."

            Wanda sat up in bed and did the thing they least expected.  She pulled Pietro to her with one arm, and Rogue to her with another.

            "I want a family again," she said quietly, and Rogue felt Wanda's tears soaking through the back of her shirt.  

            "Well you have a mediocre brother but I'm working on it," Pietro said.

            "And as stupid as this might sound, you've got an almost-sister, or cousin, or whatever."

            Wanda actually laughed a little at that and released her brother and her almost-sister.  Pietro looked at her and squeezed her hand again.

            "But now comes the hard part.  The worst person in the world is sitting in our chair downstairs, and you have to pretend to be glad to see him.  If he asks you why you're upset, you make something up.  Can you manage that?"

            A moment later, Pietro walked down the stairs flanked by Rogue and Wanda.

            "It's about damn time," Magneto growled, standing up.  "How kind of you two to pry yourselves apart long enough to grace us with your presence.  And Scarlet Witch.  Are you all right?"

            "Yes, father," Wanda said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

            "The house was shaking just now."

            "I fell asleep, and I was having a nightmare about Wraith."

            Magneto smiled.

            "Well there's no need to worry about Wraith any more my dear, he's quite dead."

            Wanda blinked at him.

            "I know.  Pietro shot him."

            It was Magneto's turn to blink.

            "_You _killed Wraith?" Magneto exclaimed, staring at his son.  Pietro rolled his eyes.

            "Okay, if there's one thing I'm sick of talking about today, it's that asshole," Pietro replied snidely, sprawling on the couch.  Wanda and Rogue sat on either side of him, and for some reason, their presence actually made his leadership seem fully credible.  

            "You killed him, yes or no," Magneto snarled.

            "Pietro shot Wraith six times in the head.  He didn't get up," Rogue answered.  

            "Fair enough.  That takes care of Wraith. Gambit tells me there was a girl in the Sibyl.  What happened to her?"

            "I dropped her off at the Four Seasons," Colossus replied quietly.  Magneto whirled on him.

            "You let her go?"

            "She wanted to go home," Colossus shrugged.  

            "Did you at least find out her name?"

            "Emma Frost," Pietro said.  

            "Of the Boston Frosts," Rogue added.

            "Fine, I can work with that," Magneto said, gritting his teeth.  "At least you destroyed what you were supposed to destroy without getting killed.  For that, I suppose you are to be commended.  Stay here until I call you.  Gambit, Colossus, Pyro, you three disperse."

            Having said this, Magneto turned to go, but stopped as a small voice spoke up from the couch.

            "Father?  Do you have to go so soon?"

            Magneto turned back to see Wanda looking small and afraid and full of need.  His son now had his girlfriend, but his daughter, she still had no one.  No one but him.  He walked back over and touched her face with a gloved hand.

            "We'll all be together again soon, Wanda," he said.  "But there's plans that need to be made.  This young psychic could be very dangerous to us, she must be found and persuaded to join us, or we must take measures to ensure that she does not compromise us."

            Magneto turned and walked out, Pyro and Colossus close behind.  Gambit swept up his bottle of bourbon and his trench coat, and with a melancholy, longing leer at Rogue, walked out the door.  

            Lance, Todd and Freddy looked startled as Rogue and Pietro burst into smiles.

            "That was amazing!" Pietro cried out.  

            "Seriously girl, where'd you learn to act?" Rogue added.

            "Hey, whoa whoa whoa," Todd said.  "I gotta 'ave missed something."

            "Gentlemen," Pietro said.  "What's the coolest thing we've got going for us right now?"  

            Lance rolled his eyes.

            "Working for Magneto, unfortunately."

            "Bingo," Rogue said.  "What would be just about the coolest thing in the world?"

            "Normal life, requited love, beer, financial stability-" Todd started.

            "Better stocked fridge, walk-in freezer-" Freddy added.

            "Not having to think about people judging us all the time," Lance finished, but he might as well have said 'Kitty Pryde, the way things used to be.'  

            "Close, but not quite," Wanda said.  "The coolest thing in the world would be not working for anyone at all, including Magneto."

            "No way that's happening," Freddy said.

            "Yeah, Magneto don't seem like the type to let go-a his recruits unless they're dead, yo," Todd said.  Wanda broke into a chilling smile.

            "Or unless he is."


	19. Pavlov's Bell

AN: Okay, not so much a plot forwarding chapter, but just something I wanted to try.  The characters get a little more introspective about what they're planning on doing, and we find out a little more about what happened after Emma got dropped off, as well as a little bit about what's going on in the X-Mansion.  A pretty useless chapter, but I like it.

_I won't let it show --  
I'm all about denial --  
But can't denial let me believe?  
That we could talk about it  
But we can't talk about it  
  
Because nobody knows  
That's how I nearly fell  
Trading clothes  
And ringing Pavlov's bell  
History shows -- but rarely shows it well  
Well, well, well…_

_-Aimee Mann, "Pavlov's Bell"_

            Rogue was sitting at an oak table that looked like it weighed as much as a Buick, covered in an organza embroidered tablecloth.  There was a silver Russian tea service set on the table, and pale tea cups of fine, translucent pale china.  The whole room was pale and bright, like a photo taken in just a little too much sunlight.  The window was partly open, and clean, fresh air blew in, billowing the lace curtains.  Rogue saw that she was dressed in a dusty violet dress and black corset, black gloves up well past her elbows, like the heroine out of a Victorian horror novel.  

            "Sorry I'm late," a voice came from behind her.  "I had a few things to take care of in my superego."

            "Emma?" Rogue said, turning around.  

            "In the flesh.  Well, not really," Emma said, looking down at herself.  She was dressed in the same style as Rogue, all in white, a Victorian era silk tuxedo and a frothy white blouse.  She, like the room, was a pale vision, with her sunlight blonde hair and her pale blue eyes.  She sat across from Rogue, pouring steaming tea into Rogue's cup and handing it to her.

            "Where are we?"  Rogue asked.

            "Your mind.  I hope you'll forgive me, I altered things just a bit, let some light in, that sort of thing."

            "Um… sure."

            "In any case," Emma said, stirring her tea.  "I just dropped by for a visit, and to discuss a few things with you."

            She sipped her tea pensively and sighed.

            "Much as I am loathe to admit it, your friend Todd was not wrong.  When I called home, my darling sister Adrienne delighted in telling me that our parents knew everything and wanted nothing more to do with me.  Apparently dear Adrienne had sorted out my little secret and was in fact the one who called some government lackey, who eventually got back to Wraith."

            "I'm so sorry," Rogue said, thinking Emma looked awfully calm.

            "While I was initially distressed to find myself so unceremoniously disowned, the situation was quickly remedied as I _persuaded_ dear Adrienne to wire me every penny in her overstuffed bank account."

            "How'd you do that?" Rogue asked.  Emma shot her a withering glance.

            "Don't be thick.  I made her want to.  I can do that."

            "She didn't need that money?"

            Emma's look went from withering to wry.

            "Only to support her cocaine addiction, dear.  Don't worry, I'm not stealing food from the mouths of babes, Rogue.  But I was curious about your organization, now that I appear to be somewhat without country at the moment."

            "Well, Pietro's in charge, and Magneto's-"

            "Oh no, dear.  I've seen how you lot in the Brotherhood live, and without some extensive work from a contractor and some serious lessons in etiquette, I'm afraid it's just not for me.  I was referring to the X-Men.  Those seem like accommodations I could live with.  Drink your tea, darling, it's going to get cold."

            Rogue reached out and put cream and sugar in her tea, and took a sip.  It tasted like exotic flowers, like no tea Rogue had ever tasted.  

            "Can't you just pick everything I know and felt about the X-Men straight out of my head?"  Rogue asked.  "No offense meant, the tea party is really nice, but it just seems like a lotta trouble to go through…"

            Emma smiled merrily and kicked up one of her feet.

            "Caught.  Oh well.  I can, and I have, perused your memories of the Xavier Institute.  The truth of the matter is I haven't had a conversation in many a day.  Todd seemed to dislike me, Colossus seemed to stoic, Pyro too psychotic, Sabertooth likewise, Scarlet Witch and Magneto were unconscious, Gambit loathsome, and your boyfriend… troubled.  You seemed like my best bet for a rational and interesting discussion."

            "Thanks."

            "I can let you sleep, if you like," Emma said, sipping demurely.  

            "That's okay, I don't mind hanging out.  This is actually really cool."

            Emma smiled.  

            "I'm glad you think so.  Just my little way of playing pretend.  So what is the story with you and the boss's son?  Love at first sight, opposites attract?"

            "He kept squatting in my brain by touching my skin until I fell for him, building up an immunity to my powers at the same time.  Hey, you know Magneto's looking for you, right?"  Rogue said, drinking down the rest of her tea and pouring herself another cup.  Emma picked up a small cookie and took a bite.

            "I am aware, yes."

            Rogue leaned forward, putting down her teacup.

            "It's a big deal, Emma," she said.  "He's dangerous and crazy."

            "Is that why you and the twins are planning to kill him?" 

            Rogue turned pale.

            "Oh god…"

            Emma laughed.

            "Do I need to imagine some smelling salts?  Don't fret dear, your secret is safe with me."

            "You have to get out of Boston," Rogue said.  "The Xavier Institute isn't a bad idea, you'd be safer there than anywhere else."

            "If your memory serves, some people have broken in with no trouble at all," Emma replied.  "But I suppose you're right.  Off to the up with people camp I go, I suppose."

            There was a long pause of silence in which they both quietly sipping their tea.  Emma broke in with,

            "So tell me… exactly how attached _is _Mister Summers to the red-head?"

            Emma and Rogue continued to stay in touch with nightly tea-parties in Rogue's mind.  There was no sign of Magneto, so aside from the most basic of exercises, there was little to do.  Pietro and Rogue endeavored to spend more time with Wanda, and Pietro decreed that on weekdays, they would all eat dinner together.  It wasn't always civil or pleasant, but more often than not, it was fun.

            Then one night at dinner, Todd brought up an interesting point.

            "Hey, I been thinking…"

            Freddy put on a wash of mock concern.

            "Oh god no!  Did you sprain something?"

            Lance hucked a wadded up napkin at Freddy, but Todd himself did not retaliate.

            "Seriously," he said, looking slightly troubled.  "If we kill you-know-who, and sweetums, I'm not saying we shouldn't!" he exclaimed before Wanda could use her powers to cause his peas to turn into an army of tiny Mongol warriors who would attack him with catapults made from silverware, loaded with mashed potatoes.  "But if we kill Mister the Man, what happens after that?"

            "Well, we…" Pietro started, then trailed off.

            "See, that's what I mean.  Let's say we manage to off his highness by next Thursday.  Whaddawe do after that?  Do we just go join the X-Men, or track down Mystique next?  Hell, I wouldn't mind knocking off a few of my former foster parents.  I just wanna know if there's a plan that comes after the plan."

            Rogue, Wanda and Pietro looked at each other, until finally Wanda spoke up.

            "Not really, Todd.  I guess we didn't think it out that far."

            "Oh.  I mean, that's okay too, you know…" Todd said, moving his peas around on his plate.  Everyone sat in silence for the rest of the meal.  

            That night, Rogue found herself in a different room, lying on a big leather couch on her back.  Emma sat in a chair next to her, wearing a white suit, with a leather-bound notebook in her hands and silver glasses perched on her nose.

            "You really liked playing dress up when you were little, didn't you?" Rogue asked.  

            "Ah ah, I'll be asking the questions.  Tell me about your mother."

            Rogue lay back and relaxed.  

            "Don't you know everything I have to say already?"

            "That's not the way therapy works.  I don't tell you answers, I ask the right questions and make you realize things about yourself.  So tell me about your damned mother."

            "Which one?" Rogue asked.  Emma arched an eyebrow.  

            "I'm intrigued already.  Whichever you prefer."

            "I don't know who my birth mother was.  Mystique says she adopted me, but I know she's lyin'.  I'm not really sure why she says that though."

            "Do you want her to be your biological mother?"

            "Hell no," Rogue responded instinctively, but then paused.  "I don't know.  I guess I kinda do."

            "No, then yes.  Which is it?" Emma asked.

            "I wish she wasn't part of my life.  But since she's my mother, I know Kurt is my brother.  And I guess I'd rather have her for a mother than have no family at all."

            "What is Mystique like?"

            "She's manipulative, and she lies to me all the time.  She's a shape shifter.  She can look like anyone.  She's been the principal of the school, she's been Professor Xavier, she's been all kinds of people.  She's the best liar there is."

            "But with one touch, the truth just pops into your head."

            "Yeah.  I don't really know why she bothers."

            "Perhaps she wants something better for you than the truth.  Tell me about your other mother."

            "Irene Adler.  Mystique and Irene lived together, with me, till I was about thirteen.  Then Mystique left one day and never came home."

            "Were they a couple?"

            "I have no idea," Rogue sighed.  "Maybe.  After Mystique left, Irene seemed really lonely, and I missed her too.  Right around then, Irene stopped touching me.  She'd hug me, but that was it.  It was… weird.  She said I'd developed a skin condition that could be passed on by touch."

            "You missed physical contact?"

            "I really did.  There's just something about it.  I hadn't been able to safely touch anyone at all for three years.  Then Pietro built up a resistance."

            "Did you have a father figure in your life?"

            "Not till I was with the X-Men, the Professor, Doctor McCoy, I don't know if I'd call 'em father figures, but male authority figures, at any rate.  Logan was the only one who ever got really over-protective.  Tried to kill Pietro a couple of times.  That's about as paternal as anyone's ever been to me."

            Rogue looked up to see Emma trying to stifle some giggles.

            "What?  _What?"_  Rogue asked.

            "Nothing, just um… Freudian humor.  Please, continue."

            "But then Mystique came back, and I was living with Lance, Pietro, Freddy and Todd, so I sorta O.D.ed on brothers."

            "What about Scott Summers?"

            Rogue snorted.

            "Joined at the hip with Jean.  I embarrassed myself more than once trying to get that boy's attention."

            "Hm… the oblivious type.  You don't happen to know his favorite fragrance?"

            Rogue turned sideways on the couch.

            "You like Scott?" she said.  "I mean, _like _like him?"

            Emma looked down at Rogue over her glasses.

            "This isn't middle school, Rogue.  I don't _like _like him, I lust after him.  He's got nice features and he's just so reserved that I want to break him into little bits and eat him up."

            "Well, if you wanna go there, best of luck," Rogue said.

            "I don't need luck, darling, every boy there is still picturing me nude, except of course for Logan and Xavier, though I'm sure the Professor is too, but he's got all these clever mental shields in place."

            "Ew.  How's Jean taking you being there?"

            "If you're going to ask the tough questions, then you'll need the glasses, the clipboard and the smaller chair," Emma said, handing the first two over and standing up.  She and Rogue switched places, Rogue put on the glasses and sat down.

            "Oh, silver is not a good color for you," Emma said.  Rogue picked the glasses off her nose and snorted.

            "Don't tell Pietro that."  The glasses frames in her hand turned black, and she put them back on.  

            "Okay.  Now my first question:  What the hell did you mean when you said 'Freudian joke'?"

            "Oh, I was hoping for therapy!" Emma pouted.

            "I'll psychoanalyze the hell outta you as soon as you answer the question."

            "Okay… you said Logan nearly killed Pietro a couple times because he was being paternal."

            "Well yeah."

            "That isn't why he tried to kill Pietro, Rogue," Emma said.  

            "Well… why then?" 

            "How can I put this delicately… Logan's feelings for you are far, far from paternal."

            "Well yeah, now he hates me," Rogue said.  Emma put her head in her hands and sighed, looking at Rogue and shaking her head.

            "My poor, sweet naïve Rogue.  Your dear Mister Logan has a bigger crush on you than you ever had on Mister Summers."

            Rogue dropped the clipboard.

            "You're insane."

            "Rogue sweetie, there are more skeletons in the X-Men's closet than you've even begun to imagine," Emma said.

AN2: I think I've lost my mind, but that's what fell out of my fingers today.  Kisses and hugs, thanks to everyone who's reviewed, Pootato, I just plain blushed when I read what you said, and said aw shucks.  So thanks all, more story as soon as it falls out.  


	20. Less than Zero

AN: Okay, this is another chapter that features more Emma than Rogue and Pietro, I'm sorry, I'm having fun with her.  I swear I'll get back to the plot soon.  Thanks for all the reviews; Shadow, all my sources say that Destiny's name is spelled Irene, but I haven't checked any primary sources.  Whether or not I do will depend entirely on how obsessive-compulsive I'm feeling, in any case, I'm glad you like the story and thanks for your review.  In this chapter, which picks up in the midst of the same conversation where the last chapter left off, we follow Emma around for a little while, and see what life is like for a teenage Queen.  

you got a way  
of saying anything  
you get away with saying to me  
when you want to  
and i let you  
and you can   
play the game  
like i never could  
and even i am   
not such a goody good  
like a weakness for chocolate   
i cave  
in you and you think that i'm numb to it all  
but i'm not so innocent baby  
  


_-Splendid, "Less than Zero" _

            "No, for real, you're lying," Rogue said, looking vaguely queasy.

            "Sweetheart, it's all right.  It's what men do, they get crushes on girls."

            "Not girls half their age."

            "Oh please, Logan doesn't have the slightest idea how old he is and neither do you," Emma said, turning on her side and striking a very pin-up pose.  "He could be twenty-three."

            "He could be fifty," Rogue replied, her skin taking on a greenish cast.  "Besides, we all called him Mister Logan the whole time I was at the Institute, and thought of him as an old guy.  A totally dangerous old guy, but still."

            "Fine, fine.  Would you like to hear my theory?"

            "Probably not."

            "And yet, I think you do.  You see, Logan is convinced that he will hurt or destroy anyone he touches.  But if he touches you, he'll be knocked unconscious, and you'll know he didn't mean to hurt you.  You're the ultimate in safe for him.  He considers you some sort of misunderstood kindred spirit."

            "Oh… wow," Rogue said.  

            "He also imagines you nude about twice as often as Scott Summers imagines me _au natural_, which is very frequently thank you."

            Rogue stood up, put down the clipboard, put her finger in her ears and started to sing.

            "Oh now you're just being childish," Emma said.  

            "Am not," Rogue said.  "_Pour some sugar on me!  In the name of luvv!"_

            "Besides, I'm in your mind, you can't block me out."  A mischievous grin spread across Emma's face.  "He dreams about you.  Almost every night."

            Rogue gave up on singing, since not even Def Leopard could block out Emma if she wanted to be heard.

            "You spy on people's dreams?"

            "Like going to the cinema," Emma answered.  "It's actually very romantic.  The most common one he has is of a cabin up in Canada, just below the tree line.  He goes out and hunts and provides, and every time he comes in from the cold he comes home to warm little you."

            "He actually thinks that way about me?" Rogue said, shocked and disturbed.

            Emma nodded seriously, then cracked a huge smile.

            "And then he tears of your clothes and ravages you on a lambs wool rug in front of the fire, watching the flames play in your jade green eyes as you look up at him with passion and lust and-"  

            "_LA LA LA LA!!!_" Rogue roared, plugging her ears again, thinking as loudly as possible.

            She was jarred out off sleep by a pair of hands shaking her shoulders.

            _"LA la…_la?"  

            A very tired looking Pietro was sitting on top of her.  Freddy, Wanda, Todd and Lance all stood in the hallway, glaring into the room with bags under their eyes.

            "Muffin?  Sugar?  Light of my life, fire of my loins?"  Pietro said.  

            "Um… yes?"

            "Think you could sleep a little quieter?"

            "Yeah… sorry.  Nightmare."

            The others left grumbling.

            "Emma visiting again?" Pietro asked, taking his weight off Rogue and pulling the covers over them both.

            "Yeah," Rogue said as he snuggled his face into her hair.  "There are some things that a person was just not meant to know."

            "Try to get some sleep," Pietro mumbled.  As Rogue drifted off, she heard one final word from the blonde telepath in her head.

            _Spoilsport._

            Emma was not having fun.  There were machines taking pot shots at her, she had worked up so much perspiration that even the most generous of critics would be hard pressed to refer to her as "glowing."  

            _For the love of god, Xavier, I was forced to remain in a sitting position for months!  They only let me walk around every two days so that my legs didn't fall off!_

            _Part of being an X-Man is physical exertion, Emma.  No one expects you to run any marathons yet, but you'll never know unless you try, _Xavier replied in her head.  Emma rolled her eyes.

            "Objective completed," Jean called out, holding a brass ring in her hands.

            "A brass ring.  How trite," Emma muttered out loud, stalking towards the exit.  

            "Wait, Emma, we have to be de-briefed," Scott called out.  Emma leaned against the doorframe.

            "Scott, I will gladly de-brief or de-boxer you at a moment's notice.  But if you mean blathering on about how we could have better outwitted the big bad computer to get at the pretty shiny thing, I'll listen in from the confines of a shower stall, thank you.  Feel free to join me."

            She left the room as elegantly as possible.

            Jean was not having fun.  Emma may not have been half the telekinetic that Jean was, but the blonde's natural psychic talents put Jean's to shame.  The professor was teaching her all sorts of advanced techniques, she was a whiz-kid with Cerebro.  What bothered Jean much, much more was that this leggy blonde snob had just about everyone eating out of the palm of her hand.  Everyone except Jean and Scott that is.  In regards to Scott, this was far from lack of trying.  The phrase 'brazen hussy' leapt to mind.

            "That girl has a serious attitude problem," Jean growled.

            "She sure does," Scott said.  Jean did not care for his vague undertone of appreciation.  

            Emma stood in the shower and tried not to admit that she was miserable, but things were stacking up worse by the day.  That anal retentive red-head, Jean.  The annoying valley girl.  Xavier's moral posturing.  Logan's insistence upon physical activity.  Scott's puritanical state of arrested development.  Public school.  Indignity upon indignity.  She was starting to wonder if the real estate was really worth it.  After all, she could have a contractor at the Brotherhood House in seven minutes, and there was some reasonable Victorian architecture to work with- no.  She was _not _leaving until she had Scott Summers sitting on her knee telling her everything he wanted done to him for Christmas.  It wasn't even about hormones anymore, it was a matter of principle.  No anal-retentive red-head was going to show up Emma Grace Frost.

            She put on a blue silk bathrobe of a rather risqué length and honed in on the location of the others.  On her way to her room, she walked by the room Kitty and Amara shared to see them packing suitcases.

            "What's the occasion?" she asked.  She knew very well that she made Kitty profoundly uncomfortable, and that Amara was still considering her a candidate for friendship.

            "Doctor McCoy and Mister Logan are organizing a retreat," Amara replied.

            "What on earth for?" 

            "Rogue left, Spyke left, Bobby and I got promoted, you turned up, so the team isn't as tight-knit as it used to be.  He's concerned about our teamwork."

            "I see.  Where is this delightful little jaunt going to take us?"

            "The Everglades," Amara said.

            "I see," Emma replied again.  "I suppose I'll see you bright and early tomorrow, then."

            "Wow," Kitty said, as soon as she thought Emma was out of earshot.  "That was entirely not the reaction I was expecting."

            Little did Kitty know that the expected reaction was going on down the hall, in silence.

            _The Everglades, _ Emma thought.  _A swamp.  They want to send me to a swamp to learn how to be a team player.  A team player with an anal retentive red head who's the thrift store knock off of me.  Children.  The only person on that team I'd care to play with is the Summers boy.  _

            She walked into her room and picked up the phone, and called up her favorite contractor, while taking her clothes out of her closet and placing the articles carefully in stunningly designed luggage.

            "Klaus?" Emma said.  "It's Emma Frost.  Of course, dear, it's been far too long.  But I need you to get right over to Bayville first thing in the morning.  I have a Victorian mansion which is just pleading for renovations, and I wouldn't trust it to anyone but you."

            "This doesn't make any sense," Scott said on the porch.  

            "Hey, is that a limo?" Kurt asked, poking his head out the door.

            "That is, in fact, a white stretch Rolls Royce," Scott replied, squinting at the gleaming car.  

            "We're going to the Everglades in a limo?"

            "That's the part that doesn't make any sense," Scott said, walking down the steps.  "Excuse me," he said, tapping on the opaque black window.  The driver rolled it down, a very dignified man in mirrored sunglasses replied,

            "Yes?"

            "Can I help you?"

            "I'm here for Miss Frost."

            "Are you a friend of hers?" Scott asked.  The driver burst out laughing.

            "Yes.  The sort of friend who gets paid a thousand dollars to sit and wait for her and then drive her three-quarters of a mile."

            Scott looked perplexed and stepped away from the car.  The Professor was on the porch now, along with the rest of the main team, Logan, Henry and Ororo, all gawking.

            "I didn't request a limousine," Xavier said.   

            "I got twenty bucks on who did," Logan sneered.

            "We're taking a limo to the Everglades?" Kitty said.

            "Actually," a voice came from behind her.  "That's my ride."

            Emma stepped through their small crowd as the driver emerged from the car.

            "Miss Frost!  It's lovely to see you again," he said, kissing her hand.  

            "Marcus, you're far too good to me," she replied.

            "Do you have any luggage?"

            "It's right in the lobby, you dear man."  The driver excused himself into the mansion and began bringing Emma's suitcases out into the car.

            "Emma, this seems a bit excessive for a trip to the Everglades," the Professor said.

            "I'm not going to the Everglades, Professor Xavier.  No stint in a swamp is going to make me a team player here."

            "Well Emma, if that's your decision, I guess we have to respect that," Jean said too quickly.  Emma rolled her eyes.

            "I've seen diamonds less transparent than you, sweetheart, and I certainly wouldn't have bought any of them.  You're so insecure about anyone taking Scott away from you that it taints everything you do, and one day it will very likely bring this team to the brink of destruction, if not over it.  Scott, you're so tremendously whipped by this girl that you can barely floss without her express permission, and it's dragging your leadership down.  Miss Pryde is up to the top of her vacant little head in the waters of rebounding, so much so that she's liable to drown the rest of you in an MTV-eque adolescent soap opera.  Mister Wagner wants so desperately to be anything other than what he is, in spite of the fact that he's actually in a stable relationship.  Amara is so fixated on proving herself as a member of the main team that she's become quite myopic.  Bobby is busy trying desperately to pretend that nothing is wrong, that everything is fine.  

            "As for you, Professor Xavier, what can I say.  You picked them."

            Emma turned to go, and Logan spat on the ground.

            "At least this traitor didn't hang around for months before she turned," he growled.  Emma stopped in her tracks, and turned with a slight smile.

            "I'd intended to leave you be, Mister Logan, but since you insist of being noticed: You're drunk.  You've been drinking for weeks.  You're trying to kill the pain, but it just doesn't go away, does it Logan?"

            "What are you talking about?" Jean snapped.  Logan looked gray.

            "He knows what I'm talking about.  She's so happy, Logan, with her delinquent friends and her maniac lover.  He kisses the scars you left over her heart every night and thanks every god that ever was that she is alive and his.  She will never pick a life of wasting away of sorrow in the cold with you over any kind of life with him, no matter how drunk you get, no matter how many times you stab her.  You could kill her, kill him, kill yourself, and it wouldn't change a thing.  If you were kinder-hearted, I'd advise you to leave her alone, give up, and quit drinking, but I know you'll try anyway.  She left a big gaping void where your heart used to be.  But let me tell you something: if you try to force her back here again, if you come near her or the boy, I'll leave a big gaping void where your brain used to be."

            "You're joining the Brotherhood?" Kitty exclaimed, then covered her mouth in fear.  Emma smiled, sliding in through the door which Marcus opened for her.

            "I am a polished, gorgeous and classy delinquent, Katherine, but I am a delinquent nonetheless.  Have fun playing in the swamps."

            "Charles," Henry said.  "Do you think perhaps we should address our sharp increase in turnover?"

            "Hey!  Excuse me!  Hey!" Pietro kept saying to every person who passed by him on the lawn, but all of them just smiled at him and kept on walking.  He sighed and walked back inside to the very sleepy group seated around the kitchen table, each with a cup of coffee steaming in front of them. 

            "What the hell is going on?" Lance asked.  Pietro sat down.

            "I have no fucking clue.  Magneto maybe?"

            "Doesn't really seem like Mister-the-Man's style," Todd said.  "He seems more like the aluminum siding type."

            Wanda snorted with laughter and Todd beamed.

            "You're only funny because I'm stupid tired," she said.  "But you have a point."  

            "Mystique doesn't have the bank roll for this, that's for sure," Rogue said.

            "Maybe they've got the wrong house," Pietro grumbled, emptying half the sugar bowl into his mug.  

            At eight o'clock sharp, the trucks had arrived, ladders had emerged, and a scrawny but manicured man had set up a drafting table in their driveway and gotten to sketching.  It had been only thirty minutes, but there were people swarming everywhere with triangles and levels and tape measures.  One woman had even taken out a ball bearing, and kept putting it down on various spots on the floor and taking notes on whether or not it rolled.  Everyone's belongings had been carefully covered in drop cloths and tarps, pushed to the center of the room, and intensive sanding and repainting had begun.  Finally, blessed with a fairly warm morning, the Brotherhood of Mutants had retreated from their paint-fuming house as someone walked in and took away the two side-by-side card tables that served as their kitchen table.  They barely escaped with their collective coffee.  They reconvened on the porch, where all jaws dropped.

            Standing over the shoulder of the man at the drafting table was Emma Frost.

AN2:  Ah, whatever Emma wants, Emma gets, to paraphrase.  In the next chapters, we see how the Brotherhood changes now that they have the finances and telepathic clout to rival the X-Men.  And I promise I'll get back to the main plot and quit making this a fictional window-shopping trip.  


	21. Far From Me

AN: Well, this is a short chapter, which is almost exactly 50/50 angst and humor.  I've got three scarves left to crochet before X-Day, and since I haven't learned yet how to crochet and type at the same time, that has to take prescedence at the moment.  On with the show.

For you dear, I was born  
For you I was raised up  
For you I've lived and for you I will die  
For you I am dying now  
You were my mad little lover  
In a world where everybody fucks everybody else over  
You who are so far from me  
Far from me  
So far from me  
Way across some cold neurotic sea  
Far from me

-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Far From Me."  

            "The good news is that the foundation and the support structure are completely sound.  Gloria says that the floors are amazingly level for a house that old, especially given the odd seismic activity that seems to happen around here."

            "How long do you think?"  

            "Oh, three days on the outside, this is nothing we can't handle."

            Rogue marched up to the table and grabbed Emma's arm.

            "What are you doing?  Are you _nuts?!  _Magneto could show up any time!"

            Emma gently removed Rogue's hand and put her arm through Rogue's.

            "Good, you're up, this is Klaus, Klaus, this is Rogue.  Sweetheart, tell me what you think of the blueprints."

            "Emma!  It's not safe-  wow, that's gorgeous.  Is that a balcony?"  Rogue shook her head.  "Wait, Emma-"

            "I ought to be just livid with you, you never told me that the X-Mansion was so bloody stuffy."

            "Hey now, you can see in my head, you knew the score."

            "True," Emma mused, pursing her lips.  "But my jaunt through your memories didn't quite prepare me for the hands on experience.  Forgive me dear, it's just that when you're a telepath, denial strikes you as incredibly foolhardy, and those people have cornered the market."

            "I can understand that.  So, what the hell's going on?"

            Emma lightly smacked her forehead.

            "Sorry.  Do you remember when I said that without serious work from a contractor and some serious lessons in etiquette the Brotherhood was just not for me?"

            "Yeah…"

            "I'm willing to forgo the etiquette lessons.  It's a lovely old building, it just needs a little sprucing up.  Don't mind Klaus' people, they'll be gone before you know it, and I promise you won't miss the leaks in the roof."

            Emma waved to the boys and Wanda.  Wanda raised a hand back, stunned.  

            "She's redoing our house," she said.  "Unbelievable."

            "That chick is psycho," Todd muttered, downing the last of his coffee.  A man in a white coat immediately walked up and refilled it.  "This is so totally disturbing.  Am I still allowed to wipe my own ass?"

            "Not enough money in the world, sir," Mister Coffee replied, freshening all the other mugs and walking off.  Emma strolled over to the group, arm in arm with Rogue.

            "Good morning all, she said."

            "I take it you're moving in?" Pietro asked, sipping his coffee, then spitting it out onto the lawn.  "Jesus, Lance, how can you drink this crap black?"

            "I am, if that's all right with you, of course.  Hence the renovations, which I hope you'll excuse, it was really just a waste of good architecture _not _to overhaul it."

            "We're fine with you moving in, but are you bringing the army of butlers?" Lance asked.

            "Goodness no.  They only turn up to ease transitions.  In any case, once the renovations are done, I think we should have a nice talk about setting up a stock portfolio."  
            "Stock portfolio?" Freddy said, eyebrows shooting up.  Emma nodded, sitting on the porch steps and watching the activity around her.

            "In the few days I spent with the X-Men, I observed a few things.  They are dishonest with each other, each of them is fraught with personal hang ups and psychological problems, about which they are in utter denial.  They're not even that gifted, really, and by and large, they're idiots.  Your team has superior communication skills, a better spectrum of skills, better leadership, and far better bonds.  So what do they have that you don't?"

            "It's way too early to think, Emma," Wanda muttered.

            "All they have that you don't is a couple telepaths and money," Emma replied, smiling at her handiwork.  "I for one will be interested to see how your conflict will play out now that you have both."

            "Fair enough, but I'm not gonna be some lackey for you," Todd said.  "Pietro's our crummy leader, and I'm gonna stick by that."

            "Hey!" Pietro snapped.

            "Oh, Todd, I don't want to lead.  Think of it like a cute little club from grade school.  President," she said, pointing at Pietro, "Vice President," she said pointing at Rogue.  "Senators," she added, smiling at Todd, Freddy, Lance and Wanda.  "The only job I want is treasurer.  I'll follow orders like a good little lamb, just leave the mind-reading and the financial planning to me, and we'll be the only mutant team in town with 401k plans.  Oh look, the caterers are here."

            Logan sat in silence as Ororo flew the Velocity.  No one was supposed to be able to read his mind.  Not even Xavier.  But Emma Frost had flipped through his dreams like the pages of a magazine, and now, there wasn't much left that she didn't know.  

            His instinct was to kill all three of them.  Emma.  Quicksilver.  Rogue.  It was the animal thing to do, chew off the limb in the trap, claw underneath your skin until you dug out the thing that was killing you.  The human thing to do was to dwell on it, savor it, soak in it, let the pain saturate you until it went away all on its own.  Logan wasn't sure what would be the mutant thing to do.  

            While she was living under Xavier's roof, Logan had an outlet for his affection.  He could protect her and keep her safe and understand her better than anyone else in the mansion.  The two loners, trying to work with the team.  He'd taught her how to ride a motorcycle.  She'd saved his ass more than once herself.  He'd thought that there was an unspoken understanding, that she just knew on instinct the way he thought.  

            But then, one day, Rogue had come home talking seven miles a second and cursing the day that Pietro Maximoff was ever born.  Logan thought it was a phase, another prank, another one of the daily dramas that they all had to put up with.  It didn't even occur to him to be threatened by the lanky white haired kid from the Brotherhood.  The boy wasn't even a blip on the radar.  But he was a big blip on Rogue's.   The kid had won her over while he was unconscious, by touching her skin on purpose and hanging out with her in her mind.  It happened so fast that Logan hadn't been tipped off until it was too late.

            Even then, Logan still had her mutation to count on.  She'd looked so beautiful in her dress when he'd been taking pictures of them before the dance.  Jean had told him that this was going to be Rogue and Pietro's first and last date.  Logan had planned to be consoling and kind when Rogue got home, had planned to let her cry on his chest and stroke her hair, because she would never in a million years show that kind of weakness to anyone else.  Instead, he'd spent almost an hour watching the one thing that should've been impossible: Rogue and Quicksilver kissing in the back seat of Summers' car.  When he'd finally ordered her back inside, she was too deliriously happy to notice the look of complete betrayal on his face.  

            After everything went to hell in a handbasket with the Sentinels and the senate hearings, she had distanced herself more and more from all of them, even him.  Logan didn't much mind, since Pietro had vanished from the face of the earth.  She'd gone for a walk and never come back.  

            So, against Xavier's orders, he'd gone to get her.  The last thing he remembered was seeing blood coming out of her mouth and feeling her hands on his face as she stood there with his claws through her heart.  He'd woken up the next day back at the Institute to Summers asking what the fuck was wrong with him.  He ignored the kid's furious tirade about attacking Rogue; all Logan could do was stare at the blood which was still on his claws.  He set to work immediately trying to hate her, and he did, he hated her, he hated Quicksilver, he hated himself, he hated pretty much everything.  

            He couldn't help but wonder if things would have been different if he'd been the one to build up an immunity to her touch, but it had never occurred to him to try.  When had he become so… timid?  When had he become so cautious that a punk like Quicksilver could out dare him?

            Well, that was all there was to it.  He'd just have to show Rogue that her scrawny boy-toy wasn't the only one with enough balls to take the risk.  And then she'd know everything he'd been trying to say.


	22. Things I'm Gonna Do

Author's note: Let's get something straight, right off the bat.  I suck.  No matter what I'm writing or when, I invariably get hit with a month long bout of writer's block.  I really wish they'd start showing new eps of Evo again, it makes inspiration much easier.  For whatever reason, I'm back, and I know what to write next.  I'm sorry to all of you who've been waiting for an update since Decemberween, here it is.  

_I have half a mind, it's cracked and breaking_

_It's recommended, it's great for tasting_

_Spit in the face of the tried and true and_

_These are things that I'm gonna do._

_My cave is lit with tiny lights_

_I climb the stairs and catch the sights_

_Of other people down below_

_I've heard of them, they think they know_

_I make no friends, I've got no spark_

_In my defense I take apart_

_What's put together easily_

_This is all true, I'll make it be._

_-Rasputina "Things I'm Gonna Do"_

            Emma had offered to put them all up in a hotel, but they'd declined.  Maybe they were uneasy that the strangers swarming their house would tear it down if left to their own devices.  That night, Pietro and Rogue lay side by side, fingers intertwined, while a breeze rustling all the tarps and whisked away the smell of paint fumes.  

            "What are you thinking about?" Pietro asked.  

            "How in the hell we're gonna kill your dad.  What are you thinking about?"

            "What we're gonna do when we're all fifty.  I want to slap every kid who's ever said that they want to be a superhero when they grow up," Pietro replied.  He paused.  "I found some books under the bed."

            "Oh."

            "You been shopping?"

            "Maybe a little," Rogue sighed, leaning over the side of the bed and pulling out the white plastic shopping bag.  "I can always bring 'em back."

            Pietro reached into the bag and pulled out the first book.  GED prep.

            "You thinking of going back to school?" he asked.

            "Hell no," Rogue said.  "Not to Bayville, anyway, and where else would I go?"  She reached over and took the book from his hands.  "You know I don't remember a whole lot from before about a year ago, right?"

            "I figured our magnificent relationship might've overshadowed everything you'd ever experienced," he smirked, twitching his eyebrows suggestively.  She leaned over and scruffed his hair, kissing his cheek.

            "I'm sure that's it," she said wryly.  "But for real.  I don't really know why," she sighed as she pulled out the other two books, a guide to the SAT I and II.  "But it really feels like this is important to me.  I mean, let's just say on the outside that in five years everyone's come around and mutants are as common as crabgrass.  I really don't wanna be working fast food for the rest of my life just cause some crazy old men conned me into thinking I was a superhero, you know?"

            "I know exactly.  Sides, high school was boring anyway.  I burned through those textbooks in a couple weeks.  But, you know, seeing as you already got the books and all, can I please be your study-buddy?  Your white hot sexy smoldering study buddy?"

            "Why not?  You could put a whole new spin on rushing a frat."

            "That was a godawful pun, and a horrifying thought, so I'm going to kiss you," Pietro replied, and followed through.

             Three days later, the renovations were done, and the architects, the painters, the carpenters and the caterers all left with enough money to comfortably retire.  The Brotherhood sat on the porch, which could have hosted a tennis match without feeling cramped, in large cast iron chairs at a matching table, drinking coffee.

            "God, Emma, how much coke did your sister do?"  Rogue asked, surveying the intricacy of the molding along the edges of the house.  Emma shrugged.

            "Two, maybe two and a half cartels worth.  Some people will do anything to throw a good party."

            "So what's next for our intrepid band of heroes, huh?" Todd asked aloud, gazing up at the clouds.

            "Well, we were gonna kill Magneto…" Pietro said.

            "Still are," Wanda added in a dangerous voice.  Emma rested her chin on her hand.

            "Do you suppose we could kill Gambit too?"  she asked.

            "Absolutely!" Pietro said.  "Great plan."

            "Hey, I thought we were gonna try and keep the body count to a minimum!" Rogue protested.  Pietro smooched her cheek, then immediately turned to the others.

            "All in favor of killing card-boy raise your hand."

            Emma, Pietro, and Lance all raised their hands.

            "All not in favor," Rogue retorted.  She, Todd and Freddy formed the opposition.  "Wanda, you didn't vote."

            "I'm abstaining."

            "Why?" Pietro pouted.

            "'Cause I don't care," she replied.  "Kill him, don't kill him, makes no difference to me."

            "Fine, we won't actively try to kill him-" Lance said.

            "Ohh!" Emma sulked.

            "-but if some _accidentally_ opens a big fault, and then he trips on his shoelaces, it'll be very sad, but we'll all accept that these things happen."

            "Goody!" Emma smiled.  Wanda rolled her eyes.

            "Back to the matter at hand.  Killing Mister-the-Man," she said.   Mister-the-Man had become Magneto's unofficial nickname among his would-be assassins.  "We have to figure out a way to keep his little brute squad busy while someone- preferably me- hands him his trachea.  Ideas."

            "Telepathy.  Brainscramble," Lance said.  Emma tapped her temple.

            "Helmet.  Won't work on Magneto, but I could take out a few of the others."

            "Maybe you could seduce him," Freddy said to Emma.

            "I don't think that would work," Wanda replied.  "And it's too disgusting to consider." 

            "Outside of Magneto, who poses the biggest threat?" Emma mused.  "Colossus?"

            "I don't think Colossus could kill someone if it came down to it," Rogue said.  "When we were on the rescue mission, he was being as gentle as possible with the soldiers."

            "He's slower in metal form," Pietro added.  

            "Ooh, I love big slow stuff that ain't gonna kill me, lemme at 'im!" Todd said, waving his arms in the air.

            "Sabertooth is definitely the most likely to remove someone's head from their body.  

            "I'll take him," Freddy said.  "He's all claws and teeth, and I don't cut."

            "Two down," Wanda said.  

            "I'll take Gambit!" Lance exclaimed.

            "Like hell you will!" Pietro protested.

            "Shut up," Wanda said.  "Pietro, you're gonna take out Pyro.  Lance gets Gambit.  Emma's going to back up the boys, keep the Acolytes off balance."

            "Oh come on!" 

            "Which brings us back to the original question: how do we kill Mister-the-Man?" Rogue said.  Wanda just looked at her with a dark smile.  "What?"

            "I hold him, you drain him, and then I don't care who cuts his throat."

            "That's a pretty basic plan," Rogue said.

            "The more complicated the plan, the easier it is to fuck up,"  Wanda said.  "The only question is when."

            "I can take care of that," Emma said.


	23. Sleep Now in the Fire

AN:  I know, probably not the speedy update you were planning, but in this chapter, the Brotherhood finally puts their plan into action.  I don't own X-Men Evo, if I did, there'd be new episodes on right now, damn it.  : P  

_The lie is my expense   
The scope of my desire   
The party blessed me with its future   
And I protect it with fire   
I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria   
The noose and the rapist   
The fields overseer   
The agents of orange   
The priests of Hiroshima   
The cost of my desire   
Sleep now in the fire_

_-Rage Against the Machine, Sleep Now in the Fire   
  
_

            Gambit's head hurt.  He'd gotten a call that Xavier wanted to meet with Magneto, but he couldn't quite remember when, and he was pretty sure he was going to get his jaw broken for not mentioning it sooner.  

            Xavier wanted to meet with Magneto.  He'd said that Magneto could bring as much back up as he wanted, but that he, Xavier, would be coming alone.  He also said that he had something to say that Magneto very much wanted to hear.  So Gambit reluctantly made his way to Magneto's 'office,' a vast room void of everything but a large metal throne.

            "Hey Boss.  The bald cripple want a meeting."

            "No," Magneto growled from his iron chair.  

            "He say you can bring whoever, but he's comin' alone.  Say he got something to say that you want to hear."

            "Does he," Magneto replied.  "Was he at all more… specific?"

            "Just said he was very tired, too tired."

            Magneto threw back his head and laughed, far too much like a mad scientist for Gambit's taste.  He half expected the ceiling to open up and Colossus to be lowered on a steel operating table or something.

            "Charles is finally broken,"  Magneto said.  "Where are we to meet?"

            "Playground in Bayville, he say you know where it is.  Friday night at midnight."

            "All the children snug in their beds," Magneto smiled.  "Prepare the Acolytes."

            "You want the Brotherhood too?"

            "No.  Just the professionals.  It would be all too easy for Xavier to turn their minds if this is a trap.  Call the Acolytes together.  I want them well prepared."

            "You want your boy along?"

            "Not this time.  I want people I can trust to keep their mouths shut while Charles and I chat," Magneto said, standing up and walking towards the door.  

            "After all," he said, looking back over his shoulder at Gambit.  "Few situations are quite so tense as negotiating a surrender."

            At dinner that night, Emma announced that the bait had been taken.  Two days to prepare, and only one in which to execute their simple but one-shot plan.  They did the only thing that could be expected of them- they got drunk on the first, and would recover from hangovers the second, and face death on the third.

            "Shouldn't we be like, doing push ups or something?" Freddy said, as Rogue set out a fine crystal glass in front of each of them.  

            "Push ups won't help now," Wanda said.  

            "What happens if this doesn't work?" Lance asked.  Pietro laughed cheerfully.

            "Well, me and Wanda'll be dead, that's for sure," he said.  "Shut up and drink."

            They sat around and got drunk on very fine wine.  It wasn't long before Pietro and Rogue went back into their bedroom to get tangled up in each other's arms, then Todd passed out and Freddy and Wanda carried him upstairs and dumped him in his bed, then went to their own respectively, leaving Lance and Emma sitting with their feet on the coffee table sharing the last bottle of champagne.

            "So Wanda and Pietro are probably going to die tomorrow," she said, pouring herself a glass.

            "If not all of us," Lance added, forgoing the glass and drinking straight from what remained in the bottle.  "You know, you don't have to go, I mean, you just set up this gorgeous house, I'd hate for no one to be around to use it."

            "If I go we'll win.  If I don't, you'll all die, and then Magneto will probably come kill me too and ruin all my hard work."

            "What hard work?"

            Emma gave him a scathing look.

            "Turning this house into a thing of exquisite beauty and civilizing its inhabitants."  

            Lance laughed and took another hit off the bottle.

            "I remember back when that was my job.  The last part anyway."

            Emma turned on the sofa so that she was curled up against the arm, facing Lance.

            "Do you miss it?" she asked.  

            "Yeah," he said.  "Sometimes.  Pietro's just so…"

            "Impulsive?  Unfocused?  Thin?" Emma asked, picking through Lance's mind for Pietro's adjectives.  He laid his head on the back of the couch, and gazed at Emma sadly.

            "Young.  I know he's only a year younger than me, and he's been through a lot, but he still thinks he can do anything."            "When did you stop thinking you were invincible, Lance?" Emma asked, moving closer to him on the couch.  

            "When the one thing I thought could withstand anything fell apart," he said.

            "You can do better than Kitty Pryde, Lance," Emma said.  "If anyone was ever too young to understand the situation we're all in, it's her.  She has loving parents, inconspicuous powers, she looks normal.  She's not plagued by her mutation, or the things she's seen in life."  Emma stretched her legs out and looked away from him.  "You can't touch her.  That's her power."

            Lance gave a small, bitter laugh.

            "I thought it was Rogue's."

            "Rogue's the most vulnerable person in the world, you know that."

            Lance turned to face Emma.

            "I know about Rogue and Kitty.  I don't know about you."

            "What's that meant to mean?"  Emma asked quietly into the champagne flute.

            "What do you want?  What do you need?  Are you invincible, are you vulnerable, are you ever impulsive or unfocused, and why are you ready to die with us?"

            Emma just shook her head.

            "Spoken like a boy who's never been a battery for a secret government agency," she said, draining the last of her champagne and standing.

            "Boy?" Lance said, a little offended.  Emma paused at the bottom of the staircase.

            "Should I say man?"

            "Well, I don't know-"

            "If you figure it out any time soon, I trust you can find my room."

            Lance's jaw dropped as she walked up the stairs and out of sight.  Either he was far drunker than he'd originally thought, or she was totally hitting on him.

            _You're not that drunk, _a sultry voice said in his head.  _And I am hitting on you.  Serves me right for trying to be subtle.  _

            He thought for a moment, then hurried up the stairs as quietly as possible.

            Magneto drifted down the wooded path, an eerie figure with his feet off the ground.  Colossus crunched along steadily behind him, Sabertooth loping beside him, Pyro and Gambit picking up the rear.  They emerged into the playground, the grass turning into a sandy circle.  Swings creaked gently in the breeze, and everything was, of course, too silent.

            "I smell something," Sabertooth growled.  

            "Xavier?"  Magneto asked.  _Xavier, _he thought, as all the Acolytes crumpled to the ground holding their heads and screaming.  

            "Charles!" Magneto roared.

            "Not quite," a female voice replied from the darkness.  "Catch us if you can, Magnus!"

            "It's a setup," Gambit said from the ground, shaking his head.  "We should get out of here."

            "Aww, going so soon, G-man?"  another voice said.  The Acolytes were soon coughing and sputtering as a wave of sand fell over them, getting into their faces and eyes.  By the time he was able to see, Gambit saw Quicksilver standing over him, arms crossed.  "I was hopin' for a rematch."

            Quicksilver sped back into the wood and metal maze of the playground, Gambit springing to his feet and chasing after him.  As Sabertooth and Pyro also split up and stalked into the battle ground to be, Colossus stood looking at Magneto.  

            "Don't stand there and stare, idiot.  Find them."

            Colossus reluctantly set out into the playground.  They shouldn't be splitting up in a place offering so much high ground and coverage, any idiot knew that.  He trudged through the sand, having to duck under the monkey bars and wooden bridges that made up the place.  He was not in metal form; he tried to avoid it whenever Magneto was around.  It hurt Colossus to be around him, his skin, when metal, crawled as though someone were scraping their fingernails on a blackboard.

            He was ducking under the monkey bars when something hit the base of his skull like a large rock going forty miles an hour.  Colossus managed to turn himself over as his vision blurred, and saw a pair of yellow eyes looking down at him.

            "Sleep tight, yo," a voice said as he passed out.

            Gambit was following the deep rut that Quicksilver had left in the sand, a winding and ridiculous trail.  _Fucking obnoxious, even in a fight.  _He never realized he was in trouble until the ground began to shake.  He grabbed onto a beam for support, only to find himself in a choke hold.  

            "Pietro's busy, so you're just gonna have to settle," Lance said, clamping down on Gambit's trachea, waiting a good thirty seconds after Gambit had stopped moving to make sure he wasn't faking unconsciousness.  He dropped Gambit face down in the sand, which had stopped trembling.

            "I hope Emma or Pietro finds you before anyone else, prick," he muttered, then ran back into the dark.  

            Pyro couldn't see.  He'd tried to incinerate the speed demon so many times that he'd set most of the surrounding wooden structures alight, and while he could control the flames, the smoke was another story.  The flames took the shape of a dragon, searching for Quicksilver with snapping jaws.  

            "You know, I really don't know why they say fight fire with fire," Quicksilver's voice said from inches behind Pyro.  He spun around only to get a face full of white foam.  Unable to see, he lost control of the flames, which became a perfectly normal lethal inferno.  

            "Fire extinguishers work so much better," Pietro said as Pyro struggled to clear his eyes.  "And you know what else?"

            Pyro went down hard as Pietro nailed him in the head with the red canister.

            "They're damn heavy," he finished, dropping it and running off.

            Sabertooth couldn't smell the enemy through the smoke, and something was twisting in his brain, making the playground look like an Escher inferno.  He heard a voice laughing in his head, the little rich bitch they'd rescued from Weapon X.  

            _"Dear me, are you feeling queasy?"  _

Sabertooth snarled and spat, turning wildly, trying to find something to kill.

            _"It would be so much easier if you didn't fight."  _

            Sabertooth roared, shocked, as he was picked up off the ground.  

            "Hey Emma," Freddy said.  "Wanna see my three pointer?"    

            He hurled Sabertooth off into the woods, clear out of the playground.

            "_Goodness,"_ Emma said in his mind.  _"Why didn't you make the basketball team?"_

            "I suck at free throws."

            _"The Acolytes are done.  Let's go back up Rogue and the Witch."_

            Magneto hovered twenty feet above the ground, observing the flames and the smoke.  This situation was wholly unacceptable.  The Acolytes were proving to be completely useless; he would have to salvage whatever was left of both teams after the fight was done and teach them all lessons in discipline, obedience, and fear.  Perhaps this trial by fire would forge a stronger team.  The only question was, who would the victors be?

            Pietro emerged first from the burning wreck, followed by the others, including the little psychic they'd picked up on the rescue mission.  

            "If you've made your point, I am prepared to express my admiration," he said coldly from his place in the air.

            "You mean those losers?" Lance asked, gesturing back to the battleground.

            "That was cake, yo," Todd added.  

            Magneto smirked.

            "I can't help but notice that your sister's not with you, Quicksilver.  Did you leave her out of this little bid for attention?"

            "Anybody ever tell you you talk too much?" was all Pietro replied before Magneto dropped like a stone.  He had the presence of mind to hold onto his helmet, the last thing he needed was an attack from Xavier in the midst of all this.  He hit the ground hard, winded, cut off from his power, an all too familiar sensation.  

            "Wanda!" he roared in fury and pain, staggering to his feet and looking wildly around for his daughter.  He saw her sitting on the ground, an inverted pentacle drawn in the sand in front of her with a crudely drawn goat's head inside.  Framed by the flames with the infernal sigil in front of her, she truly looked as though she had emerged from hell.

            "Agatha told me only to use this in an emergency, Father," she said, spitting out the words.  

            "Wanda, don't do this," Magneto began, prepared to play the paternal affection card again.  

            "Rogue, shut him up," Wanda snarled.  

            Those hands, he hated those hands.  Little fingers with chipped black nail polish snuck under his helmet, almost as though she were going to cover his eyes and ask, 'Guess who?'  He knew damned well who.

            "Wanda, you gotta let him go, you're blocking my power too," the southern girl said.  Magneto wrenched out of her grip and lurched away, towards his daughter, his powerful traitor of a daughter that he should have smothered in the cradle along with her wicked brother, a pillow over both their faces at once, better that than this, now.  

            Pietro knocked him down easily, just a gust of wind and a force knocking him off his feet.  Blob and Avalanche each pinned his arms to the ground, his helmet rolling aside.

            "Rogue, when I release his powers you cannot let go," Wanda said.  "If you do, we're all dead."  

            Magneto's view of his daughter was obscured as the Rogue stepped between them and knelt down, straddling his chest.  She'd stripped off the gauze shirt she usually wore, leaving her arms completely bare, but as she looked down at the monster, all but vanquished, she hesitated.

            "It's not so easy when you have to look me in the eye, is it Rogue?" Magneto said in his warmest voice.  "Would Charles really want this for you?  A mutant murdering another mutant?"  

            His last ditch hope was dashed as she put one hand on his face, the other behind his neck. 

            "I'm ready," she said.  "When Wanda lets him go, the rest of you get back."

            As soon as she was sure Rogue had a good grip on her father, Wanda let him go, rising and staggering away from both her father and the flames.  Lance had to drag Pietro away, as they all moved back a good thirty feet.

            The second his powers were free, Magneto began tearing at the metal in the playground, a frenzied panic as the powers he lived for were drained away.  He rolled over, trying to dislodge the girl, but she threw her arms around his neck like a demonic dance partner, gripping his hair to hang on.  He got to his feet, trying to use her weight against her, but she would not be shaken off, no matter how he pulled at her arms or how much he thrashed.  She was screaming, and so was he, all the chains of the swings, the red hot nuts and bolts from the burned playground, screws and nails, flying around them in a typhoon as the transfer of power shattered their control.  He fell to his knees, then forward, pinning the Rogue with his weight as darkness crept into his mind, not merely sleep, but something more permanent.  

            Magneto forced the last of his control and consciousness into one final act.  As Rogue began to push away from him, he pulled at something with his mind and hoped it would be enough.  He grabbed her hand in his.

            "What are you- Magneto, don't you'll die!" she said, trying to shake off his hand.

            "Wasn't that the idea?" he said bitterly, gripping tighter.  The object he'd been seeking, a simple metal bar, which flew towards them and twisted around both their wrists, binding them together.

            "You wanted my powers," Magneto snarled as the draining connection was maintained.  "So take them."

            Now it was Rogue's turn to be afraid, trying to pull away, prepared to dislocate her thumb to get out of the makeshift shackle, but her victim grabbed her other arm.

            "You said it yourself.  You can kill me and be me in one easy step," he said, fighting unconsciousness to the last.  "You've made the biggest mistake of your life."

            "What the fuck are they doing?" Pietro said frantically.  "She was supposed to let go by now!  He should be out!"  

            "She knows what she's doing," Wanda said.  Emma shook her head.

            "She doesn't.  She's in trouble," she replied.  Pietro was off like a shot, dodging all the fragments of metal with more speed than he'd ever mustered before.  Magneto was unconscious, Rogue unresponsive, her eyes wide and staring blankly at the smoky night sky.  

            "Rogue?"  he said, starting to pick her up.  Her arm dragged, and he saw the metal bar.  "Oh fuck.  _Wanda!!_" he screamed, clawing at the manacle.  

            Wanda reached out as hard as she could.  There was still power leeching from Magneto, but the tornado of metals was being caused by Rogue.  It was one thing to block the powers of someone in control of them, it was another to block powers that were in control of the person.  Rogue was suffused in the red sparks of Wanda's power, and the flying fragments fell to the ground.  The Brotherhood ran over.

            "Freddy, get this thing off her," Pietro said frantically.  

            Freddy managed to unbend the metal which held Rogue and Magneto together, throwing it aside.  

            "Shit, shit, shit, Rogue, baby, look at me," Pietro said.  Rogue's eyes remained open, twitching slightly as though she were seeing something far away and frightening, and would not look at him no matter how much he shouted or shook her.

            "The cops are coming," Todd said, straining to hear the sound of sirens, faint and distant, but there.  "And the fire department's gonna be here any second."

            "I can't hold her powers forever," Wanda said frantically.  Emma reached out and brushed her fingers over Rogue's head, touching only her hair and not her skin, and Rogue's eyes shut.

            "She should be out for a while," Emma said, her usually carefree voice heavy with fear and exhaustion.  She looked at Wanda gravely.  "If you're going to kill your father, I suggest you do it quickly."

            "Is he still in there?"  Wanda said.

            "He's a prisoner in his own body," Emma said.  "He touched Rogue for too long.  He won't be waking up."

            "Then let him rot," Wanda replied shakily.  "Let him rot slow in a hospital someplace.  Come on."

            Pietro scooped up Rogue's limp body, glancing down at his father's.

            "So long, old man," he said, then ran off at a speed reasonable enough for the others to keep up as the sirens got closer, leaving the Acolytes and Magneto behind them to get picked up or die in the fire.  

            Lance was picking up the rear, ready to cause an earthquake to ensure their escape, only turning when they reached the woods safely.  As he followed his friends back to their house, he felt someone's hand slip into his.  He gave Emma a reassuring smile and squeezed her hand as they reached home.

AN2: Of course, this is not the end.  More to come.


End file.
